Hearth Fire
by Lady Iera
Summary: When Jon returns to Castle Black from Hardhome, an unexpected visitor is waiting for him. Summary inside. (This started out as a h/c one-shot, but is now being expanded to include a Jon/OC pairing and its impact on the events of the final three seasons of Game of Thrones.) WARNING: non-canon character death!
1. Chapter 1

**_PLEASE READ FIRST!_**

 _I started to write this story because I am a sucker for h/c, and I found the show's treatment of the injuries that Jon sustained at Hardhome completely implausible. So, enter my OC to take proper care of them - Charleen Wollard, the daughter of one of Ned Stark's bannermen, who was orphaned in the course of Robert's Rebellion and brought to Winterfell as a baby to be raised by the Starks. Growing up with the Stark children, she learns the art of healing from Maester Luwin and later has to watch from the sidelines as her adopted family and home are destroyed. Forced to witness first-hand the torture that Ramsay Bolton inflicts upon Sansa, Charleen finally takes her chance to escape from Winterfell and flees north, hoping to find Jon at Castle Black. When Charleen arrives at the Wall, however, she learns that Jon has gone north to seek out the wildlings at Hardhome... (Essentially, this story started out as an excuse for some shameless Jon h/c, but I'm going to try and expand it a little. Please read & review, and tell me if I should continue!)_

 _ **Disclaimer:** I own nothing. _

"You're worried about the Lord Commander, aren't you?" Gilly asked, looking up at Charleen over the huge vat of bread dough they were kneading.

Charleen bit her lip. "Of course I'm worried," she said. "What if the wildlings decide that they don't trust him?"

"Sam says that Jon always comes back", Gilly answered with a small smile. "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but he'll come, you'll see."

"I pray to the gods that you're right", Charleen said, plunging her hands back into the dough, "the old and the new."

As if in response to her prayer, the reverberating blast of a horn suddenly boomed out over the Wall, seeming to shake its very foundations. Both women froze, counting the seconds before the dreaded second blast.

It never came.

Instead, the silence was finally broken by a sharp call, the sounds of hurried footsteps, and the creaking of the chains as the northern gate of the tunnel was opened.

A triumphant smile broke out over Gilly's face, but Charleen did not notice. She grabbed a cloth from the table on which she had been working on the dough and hurried out into the passage leading up to the courtyard, wiping her hands as she went. Emerging into the dull white light and the swirling snow, the calls of the Brothers of the Night's Watch reached her ears – "The Lord Commander! The Lord Commander's back!" – and for a moment, she felt almost giddy with relief.

Her eyes fell on Sam, waiting at the entrance of the tunnel where the gate had not yet been raised, and she pushed her way through the crowd towards him.

"Sam!", she called, "Sam!"

He turned at the sound of his name, and she moved with some difficulty to stand next to him. "I'm going to wait in Jon's chambers," she told him, "I don't want to intrude here. Maybe when he's done, you can tell him that I've come to see him?"

"Of course!" Sam exclaimed, his eyes wide with excitement, and Charleen turned to climb the stairs to the gallery. When she reached the door into the castle, it was pushed open from the inside and Olly emerged. He threw her a searching look as she passed by him into the building and made her way upstairs to Jon's chambers. There was a faint orange glow coming from the inner room – clearly, Olly had just been in here to light a fire for his Lord Commander. Charleen settled down on a chair in the outer room, listening for the sounds coming up from the courtyard.

All of a sudden, she noticed that her hands were shaking. How would Jon react to her presence here, at Castle Black? After all, there was nothing he could do for Winterfell or for his sister, having forsworn all allegiance except to the Watch. Moreover, had his vows not ended their childhood friendship, as well? She could hardly be sure from what position she was to address him, the orphaned daughter of one of the minor Northern houses speaking to the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. In her headlong flight from Winterfell, she had not had the time to ponder these questions, but they had been hovering at the back of her mind ever since her arrival in the relative safety of Castle Black, and now that she was about to speak to Jon, they crowded in upon her with renewed urgency as she sat in the semi-darkness of his room, gazing unseeingly out at the snow that was slowly piling up on the windowsill.

After what seemed like hours, the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs outside broke through her anxious musings. Charleen barely had time to straighten up in her chair before the door opened and Jon stepped into the room. One glance at him told her that he was in pain – there was a certain stiffness to his movements, and on the side of his face a deep cut bore witness to where he must have received a violent blow.

"Charleen," he said huskily, "what are you doing here?"

"The Boltons have Winterfell," she replied hurriedly, anxious to get all the bad news out at once, "and your sister, Sansa –"

"I know about Winterfell," Jon interrupted, "Roose Bolton sent a raven –" He winced, leaning forward gingerly to support himself with his hands on the table.

"Oh, Jon, you're hurt," Charleen blurted out, unable to keep on discussing the events at Winterfell with him in the face of his obvious distress. She rose to move to his side and drew up a chair for him. "Here, sit down. What's wrong with you? Tell me."

"Nobody must know," Jon replied breathlessly, carefully lowering himself down into a sitting position. "I have divided the Night's Watch. One sign of weakness from me and it will tear itself apart. I am their Lord Commander, I must keep order now at all cost."

"Nobody is going to find out from me," Charleen reassured him, "but please let me help. What happened to you?" She knelt down in front of him, looking up earnestly into his face, and he reached out to grasp her shoulder for support.

"Oh, Charleen," he shuddered, and she realized that there were tears in his eyes, "it was a failure. I failed these people." Slowly and haltingly, his voice choked with pain and emotion, he told her what had happened at Hardhome, while she listened in silence. "I set out to save them," Jon finally concluded, "and instead, they've swelled the ranks of the Night King." He buried his face in his free hand, his whole body shaking with suppressed sobs.

Charleen gently put her hand on his arm. "You led a lot of people through those gates today," she said quietly, "I saw them from up here. Old and young, men and women, even a giant. They are all here because of you. And they will mourn the dead, but you must take care of the living. You must stay strong."

There was a moment of silence between them, then, Jon nodded and raised his eyes to hers. "Thank you," he whispered. "I know you've come because there's bad news, but I'm glad you're here."

At that moment, there was a sudden tap at the door, and Charleen instinctively drew away from Jon to resume her former position in the chair. Jon cleared his throat. "Come in," he called, and the door opened to reveal his steward, Olly, whose eyes moved from his Lord Commander to Charleen with the same searching expression that they had worn earlier, when he had met Charleen on her way to Jon's chambers. "Thank you, Olly," Jon said immediately, "I won't be needing anything else tonight. Sleep well."  
The boy's eyes narrowed. "Good night, Lord Commander," he said in a tone held carefully level, and his gaze lingered for a moment on Charleen before he disappeared, closing the door behind him.

Charleen waited until his steps had receded down the stairs before turning back to Jon. "I can take a look at you if you want," she said gently. "Maybe I can make you a bit more comfortable."

She rose to stand next to Jon as he struggled to his feet, and guided him into the inner room, where a glowing pile of embers in the grate was all that remained of the fire that Olly had made. Charleen moved over to the bed and folded back the blankets and furs, while Jon unfastened his cloak and his sword belt and laid them down on the heavy chest beneath the window.

"Sit down," Charleen told him, motioning towards the bed. She took a few pieces of firewood from a basket in the corner and set about to rekindle the fire, and the room was soon filled once again with a warm orange glow that made the shadows dance on the walls. In spite of this, however, when she drew up a chair to sit beside him, she found that Jon was shivering, and his eyes were glazed with fever. "Let's get you out of these damp clothes," she said, "you're burning up."

Jon's hands moved to the buckles of his leather cuirass, but he shook his head. "It's nothing to do with the clothes," he told her, "this has been happening every evening since Hardhome. It's always worst at night, and better in the morning."

With a grunt of pain, he tried to lift his cuirass over his head, but Charleen took it from him. "Let me do it," she said gently, "it'll save you some hurt."

"Thank you," John whispered, closing his eyes as she unfastened and removed first his quilted coat and then the two or three layers of clothing underneath it until only his shirt was left. The old familiarity had sprung up between them as effortlessly as if they had not spent a single day apart – Charleen's touch was as sure and steady as always, and Jon relaxed into her gentle ministrations with a long-forgotten feeling of trust.

Finally, Charleen helped Jon remove his boots and his outer hose, and then straightened up again. "We're going to have to take off your shirt," she told him. "The right side is the bad one, isn't it?"

"Yes," Jon replied, gingerly lifting his right arm to hold out to her, but she shook her head.

"We'll start with the other one," she said. "Can you get your arm through if I pull on the sleeve –? Very good."

His left arm free, Charleen lifted Jon's shirt over his head and slipped it off the other arm, revealing his naked torso. At the sight of the damage, she winced in sympathy. Jon's right side was a mass of purplish bruising, and several deep lacerations indicated where the enemy's weapon had made contact.

"Oh, Jon, that looks painful," Charleen murmured, carefully running the tips of her fingers over the injury. "I need you to lie down for me, so that I can have a better look."

She put her arm around his shoulders, gently supporting him as he turned and lowered himself down on the bed, and then pulled his blanket and furs up over his legs.

"I'm going to take a look at the damage," she said. "You need to tell me where it hurts, all right?"

"All right," Jon replied hoarsely, but at her last words his body had visibly tensed in anticipation of further pain.

"Easy," Charleen soothed, "easy. Deep breaths. That's it."

Slowly and systematically, she began to palpate first his left side from his shoulder down to his abdomen, and then the right. "Your breastbone's fine," she told him, "collarbones too… Here's the problem, though, hm?" She had reached his ribcage, and Jon whimpered as she touched the area where the bruising was darkest. "Have you been coughing blood?" she asked him, pausing for a moment.

"Aye, in the beginning," Jon answered thickly, his teeth gritted against the pain, "but it stopped after a few hours."

"That's good, at least," Charleen said. "Has there been any more coughing since? Without blood, I mean?"

Jon shook his head, and Charleen resumed her examination of his chest. "All right," she finally concluded, moving to pull the covers up over Jon's torso. "We've got at least two broken ribs, and two more are damaged – either cracked or also broken, I can't tell for certain. The good news is that you don't have any signs of pneumonia. I'm a bit worried about the fever, but that might simply be from exhaustion. In any case, we'll have to keep an eye on it. The important thing is that we make it as easy as possible for you to breathe normally, and to cough if you need to. I'd like to go and see what supplies your maester left. He must have had what I need."

"Sam can help you," Jon told her. "He was Maester Aemon's steward and helped him take care of the sick and the injured."

"I'll go find him," Charleen replied, "I'll be back in a moment, all right?"

When she had gone, Jon let his eyes drift closed. He was exhausted, but the pain from his ribs made it impossible to get any deep, restful sleep. With a grunt of discomfort, he tried to move into a more comfortable position, and found himself facing the wall behind his bed, which was alive with the shadows from the fire.

As he watched, a figure became discernible amid the flickering, dancing shapes – tall and pallid, with a crown of ice upon its head. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its arms, and from the shadows surrounding it came a writhing mass of bodies, cold, dead hands reaching out for him, blue eyes blazing through the gloom –

"Jon?" He started up at the sound of his name, and in the blink of an eye, the nightmarish scene in front of him was gone. Instead, he was looking up at a very different pair of blue eyes – Charleen was standing over him with her hand on his shoulder.

"It's all right," she murmured, "it's just me. Well, us, really." As she spoke, Sam's face came into view behind hers, wearing a look of concern.

"Jon, I'm sorry," Sam said, "I didn't realize earlier how badly you were hurt…"

"I'm not," Jon reassured him, "just a couple of broken ribs, that's all. Charleen's going to fix me right up, you'll see."

"Well, I hope so," Sam retorted, raising his eyebrows. "Feel better, Jon." He reached out and pressed Jon's hand for a moment before turning to leave the room, and a moment later, there was a soft click as the door fell into the lock behind him.

Meanwhile, Charleen had busied herself at the table in Jon's bedroom. She brought a bowl of water over to sit on the floor next to his bed and soaked a piece of cloth in it.

I'm going to wash out those wounds, all right?" she told him. "They don't look too bad, but I want to make sure."

Carefully, she folded the covers back from Jon's injured side and wrung the cloth out over the bowl, but before she had even so much as touched him, Jon involuntarily flinched back. "Hey, it's all right," she reassured him, "this won't hurt nearly as much as before, I promise."

"Cold?" Jon suggested, and Charleen gave a little laugh as she realized what he had been afraid of.

"No, it's not," she told him gently, "I heated the water up for you. See?"

With this, she pressed the cloth against his cheek, and Jon relaxed as he realized that the temperature was indeed quite pleasant. One by one, Charleen washed out the wounds on his chest, working in silence, and for a while, there was no sound in the room except for the crackling of the fire and the occasional tinkling of water as she rinsed out the cloth.

Last of all, she washed the cut on Jon's face, and then picked the bowl up from the floor to throw out the dirty water. When she returned, Jon had fallen into a light sleep again, and she gently touched the uninjured side of his face to wake him.

"I'm sorry, Jon," she murmured, "I've got to bind your side, and then you can rest, all right? Look, I found something in Maester Aemon's stores that is exactly what I need."

She picked up a jar of ointment from the floor next to her and offered it to him to smell. The scent that reached his nostrils was grassy and not altogether unpleasant, and Jon's lips suddenly twitched up into a smile as he recognized what it was.

"Most new recruits smell of that for the first few weeks after they start their training," he said.

Charleen snorted. "I'm not surprised," she told him, "it helps with injuries caused by blunt force, and I expect that new recruits have to take quite a few beatings before they're ready to take their vows."

As she spoke, she began gently to rub some of the ointment on the bruises covering Jon's right side, and his smile turned into a grimace of pain.

"Easy," she reassured him quietly, "easy now, it'll be over in a minute. Deep breaths. There, that's it. All done."

While Jon recovered, she retrieved a thick roll of bandage material from the table across the room and then helped her patient to sit up.

"I'm going to bind your side fairly tightly," she told him. "The point is to give your ribs some support, but it shouldn't hinder your breathing, so you need to tell me how tight is too tight, all right?"

With every revolution of the bandage around his torso, Charleen made Jon take a deep breath and adjusted the fit accordingly, and when they had finally reached the end of the roll, he sank back down onto his pillow with a groan of pain and exhaustion.

"That's it," Charleen said softly, "now you can rest."

She pushed Jon's dark curls away from his forehead to feel his temperature, and found to her surprise and relief that he was no warmer than before.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him.

"Better," Jon replied, "thanks to you." In fact, for the first time in what felt like weeks, he was comfortably warm, and the bandage around his upper body gave his ribs just enough support to allow him to breathe normally without aggravating the pain.

"Is there anything more I can do to make you comfortable?" Charleen asked.

Jon raised his gaze to look at her. "Stay." He reached for her with his good hand, and Charleen took it in both of hers.

"I'm not going anywhere, Jon," she said, "I promise."

Without letting go of his hand, she resumed her seat by the side of his bed, and they exchanged a smile. Then, Jon's eyes drifted closed, and after a few moments, Charleen felt his grip slackening. She did not withdraw her hand from his, however, but merely shifted into a more comfortable position in her chair.

In the silence of the room, the sounds from outside fell upon her ears with renewed clarity – a muffled call, the sound of a door closing sharply, the slight creak of the winch chains – and she was struck with the incongruity of her situation. In here, in the microcosm of Jon's chambers, everything was perfectly familiar to her, from the easy trust that came so naturally to them both down to the very actions with which she had taken care of his injuries, but all this was embedded in circumstances so utterly strange that they seemed almost to be part of someone else's life.

At this particular moment, she and Jon might just as well have been back in Jon's chamber at Winterfell when she stitched up a cut he had sustained sneaking off with his brother, Robb, to practice swordplay with real weapons pilfered from the armoury instead of their wooden training swords. But they were at Castle Black, not Winterfell, Robb was dead, and Jon was not just Jon anymore but the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, to whom she had blindly run for succour from Ramsay Bolton.

As if in search of an external sign of these changes, Charleen leaned forward slightly to study Jon's face, and became consciously aware for the first time how different he looked from the boy that had left Winterfell almost five years ago. His beard was thicker and slightly longer, his features harsher somehow, more angular, and there were faint lines on his forehead that suggested that these days, a frown came more easily to him than a smile. His body, too, had changed, the boyish slimness of his figure having been replaced by a broad chest and shoulders, the veins on his arms and hands more prominent than before.

Charleen had never thought of him in those terms before, but now for the first time she found him handsome, and as her gaze lingered on his sleeping form, a small smile stole across her face.


	2. Chapter 2

Charleen woke Jon early in the morning, when the creaking of the winch chains had just announced that the middle shift were being relieved of their watch atop the Wall. "Jon," she murmured, gently touching the uninjured side of his face, "Jon, wake up."

"Hm?" he grunted, shifting slightly, and then his eyes opened.

"Jon, I'm sorry to wake you, but I have to go," Charleen said, "it'll be morning soon, and I don't want anyone to see that I spent the entire night here. How are you feeling?"

"Sleepy," Jon mumbled, "but better otherwise."

"I'm sorry for waking you," Charleen repeated, "but I didn't want to leave just like that. How's the pain?"

Tentatively, Jon propped himself up on his good elbow. It hurt, but compared to what such an action would have felt like the day before, the pain was certainly bearable.

"Much better," he told Charleen, "the bandage really helps."

"Good," she said. "I've been thinking – do you maybe want help getting dressed before I go? It might be difficult on your own, and I don't think you want Olly to know that you're hurt…?"

"Aye," Jon replied, "you're right, it might be easier if you help me."

He sat up in bed, bracing himself for an assault of icy air upon his body as he folded the blankets aside, but it didn't come, and he realized that the fire was still burning in the grate. With a sudden rush of affection, he became aware of the thoughtful kindness on Charleen's part that had kept it going throughout the night, and when he was finally bundled up once again in the multiple layers of clothing that were needed to keep the cold outside at bay, he reached out to take her hand.

"Thank you," he said softly, "for everything. I'll see you later, all right? Sam is going to let you know when I have time."

"Yes," Charleen replied quietly. "Take care of yourself, Jon."

For a brief moment, her fingers tightened around his, and then, turning to leave, she let go.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

When Charleen returned to her own chamber a few minutes later, she found Gilly sitting up on their bed, nursing little Sam.

"Where were you?" Gilly asked quietly, "it was cold in bed without you…"

"I'm sorry," Charleen said, pulling off her gloves, "I didn't think I was going to stay with Jon for this long. What?" she added, noticing Gilly's look, and then, realizing what the other was implying, she shook her head, laughing. "Unlike some, the Lord Commander's vows remain unbroken."

"The Lord Commander," Gilly mocked gently, "to you, he's 'Jon'".

"Of course he is," Charleen retorted, "we grew up together. What _are_ you thinking…!" She sat down next to Gilly and absently stroked the back of the baby's head. "I'm just glad he made it back alive."

The following day passed in much the same manner as all the others had done since Charleen's arrival at Castle Black. Only once, as she was carrying half a dozen frozen fowl from the storage rooms to the kitchen, did she see Jon in the courtyard, earnestly talking to a wildling with flaming red hair and beard amid the bustle of waggons filled with people and goods rolling out of the castle gate. His right arm was wrapped protectively around his side, but he seemed to be moving with greater ease than the day before, and as Charleen passed along the common hall, he briefly caught her gaze and smiled.

Darkness had already fallen when Charleen took a break from her work and sat down in front of the kitchen hearth. She had not slept much the previous night, and as the warmth of the fire washed over her, her eyelids began to get heavy, and she leaned back to rest her head against the wall. Before she could fully give in to her exhaustion, however, the door opened and Sam poked his head into the room. "Lady Charleen!" he called, "I thought I might find you here. Jon wants to see you."

"I'm on my way," Charleen said, and she rose from her seat and hurried out into the passage after Sam.

When Charleen stepped into Jon's chamber a few minutes later, he felt as though a ray of sunshine were falling on him, warming him from the very inside. "Charleen," he greeted her softly, "I hope you weren't sleeping yet?"

She shook her head. "No, I was just finishing up in the kitchen," she said, closing the door quietly behind her. "How are you feeling?"

"It still hurts," Jon replied, "but the pain's better compared to what it was."

"I'd like to change the bandage," Charleen told him, "and take another look at the injury. Can you sit down for me?" Gently, she guided Jon over to his bed and helped him lower himself down into a sitting position.

"Have you been coughing today?" she asked as they worked together to remove his clothes, and Jon shook his head.

"No, no coughing," he said, wincing slightly as he pulled his right arm out of the sleeve of his coat. "Really, I'm much better. It hurts, of course, but the pain's quite bearable now."

"You don't seem to be running a fever tonight, either," Charleen remarked, gently brushing Jon's hair out of his face to feel his temperature. "Don't expect any miracles, though – broken ribs take a few weeks to heal. We need to make sure to keep them properly bandaged until the pain is completely gone."

She put some more of Maester Aemon's ointment on the injury and bound Jon's side with a fresh bandage, and when she was done, he leaned back against his pillows with a careful expiration of breath. For a moment, he closed his eyes, then, he looked up at her earnestly. "Charleen," he said, "you need to tell me what happened at Winterfell. I know Ramsay Bolton married Sansa –"

"Ramsay Bolton," Charleen interrupted him, sitting down on the bed and leaning forward towards him urgently, "is a monster. Jon, he takes pleasure in hurting people. He rapes Sansa every night, and that's not the only thing he does to her. He – he beats her, he cuts her, he bites her, he does all kinds of unspeakable things to her. I've seen it, Jon. He made me examine her, several times, because she's not getting pregnant, and I saw – I saw what her body looked like. He's angry because she's not giving him an heir, and the angrier he gets, the more she has to suffer. Everybody's afraid of him. A few weeks ago, he threatened that he'd have to try with me to find out if the fault lay with him or with Sansa, and I was so terrified of what he would do to me that I took the first chance I got to escape. I didn't know where else to go, so I came to find you here. I'm sorry to have put you in this situation – I know about your oath, I know that you have sworn to take no part in the wars of men. I know that I should mean nothing to you now, but when everybody was distracted by the approach of King Stannis and his army and I had the chance to get away unnoticed, I simply didn't stop to think –"

"Charleen," Jon cut across her, "vows or no vows, you could _never_ mean nothing to me. I'm glad you're here, in safety from the Boltons, and I will protect you for as long as you need. As for Sansa, her ordeal might be ending as we speak. You know that King Stannis has marched for Winterfell – he is going to retake the North and avenge the Boltons' crimes."

"No, he's not," Charleen said bluntly. "A handful of Bolton men sneaked into Stannis' camp when he was two or three days' marches away from Winterfell. I overheard one of them talking to Ramsay about it afterwards. From the sound of it, they burnt most of the food stores and siege weapons and killed hundreds of horses. He wasn't exaggerating, either – from what I saw of Stannis' army when I left Winterfell, most of them were on foot."

At this, Jon's gaze darted to her face. "Are you certain?"

"Yes," Charleen declared. "I don't think King Stannis presents much of a threat to the Boltons, at least not any more." She looked earnestly at Jon, and he nodded slowly.

"We will have news from Winterfell soon, I am sure," he said, "and then we shall decide what to do. For now, I will keep you safe here. Charleen." Once again, he took her hand and held it in both of his, his gaze locked upon her face. "I can only imagine what you must have gone through. You did the right thing in coming here. I don't know what we're going to do, but I'm glad to have you by my side."

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

"Stannis came to your aid," Ser Davos urged, hurrying after Jon along the gallery above the courtyard, "now he needs you. The wildlings owe you their lives – they will fight for you. Don't you think that if they're going to live in the Seven Kingdoms, safe behind our Wall, they ought to fight for the goddamned place?"

For a moment, Jon paused, but with Charleen's words from the previous evening still echoing in his head, he knew that he was only delaying the inevitable.

"Very well," he finally answered, turning around to face Ser Davos, but before he could so much as say another word, a sharp call echoed across the courtyard, the gates were opened, and the Red Woman came riding through.


	3. Chapter 3

_This chapter follows the events of the show very closely. Enjoy, and don't forget to leave a review!_

The following evening, darkness had just fallen over the Wall and over the castle cowering in its vast shadow when Charleen stepped into her chamber, closing the door behind her. Her face was still glowing with the heat from the kitchen fire, whose hearth she had just left, but the icy air had already begun to claw at her body, sending shivers down her spine. She stuck the torch she was carrying into the sconce on the wall next to the door, sat down on her pallet, and drew her cloak close around herself in an attempt to trap the remaining warmth. Since Gilly had left for Oldtown with Sam and her baby, the evenings at Castle Black for her had become lonely and miserably cold.

"Where was Gilly now? Charleen wondered. Had she and her companions reached Eastwatch-by-the-Sea? Were they perhaps already aboard the ship that would take them south?

Wherever they were, Charleen hoped, they were more comfortable than she was now, sitting alone in the shadowy room, her breath freezing in little clouds before her face.

Suddenly, the sound of hurried footsteps in the passage outside broke into her thoughts, followed by a loud knocking on the door.

"Lady Charleen!", came Ser Davos' voice, "Lady Charleen? Are you there?"

"Yes," she called, alarmed by the urgency of his tone. She jumped to her feet, crossed the room in two strides and opened the door.

"What is it?"

Instead of an answer, Ser Davos grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out into the passage.

"You've got to come with me," he ordered, "quickly. It's not safe."

Cold dread gripped Charleen's heart. "What's happening?" she asked, instinctively drawing back from him.

Ser Davos paused, listening intently for a moment, then, he turned to look at her.

"They've murdered the Lord Commander. Who knows what they might do to those who are loyal to him, especially a lady. Please, you've got to come with me."

"Murdered – ?"

"Come, mylady, please!"

Dazed, Charleen followed him along the passage, out into the courtyard, and up the steps to the King's Tower. Her limbs seemed to have turned to water and her mind was completely blank, unable to process what she had just been told. Ser Davos led her to a chamber on the first floor, where a small group of Black Brothers was gathered. They were standing with their backs to the door, but when Charleen entered, they moved aside to let her pass.

On a table in the middle of the room lay Jon, the front of his clothes torn and soaked with blood, his face a ghastly white, unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling.

"Jon – !"

Charleen wanted to cry out, but her breath caught in her throat. Unable to make a sound, she stood rooted to the spot, staring transfixed as one of the Brothers stepped forward and shut Jon's eyes.

"Thorne did this," the man said, his voice filled with pain and loathing.

There was a moment's silence, then Ser Davos asked quietly: "How many of your brothers do you think you can trust?"

The other gave a brief reply, but the meaning of his words did not reach Charleen's consciousness. Her whole body had begun to shake, and she seemed unable to avert her gaze from Jon's lifeless form.

Suddenly, there was a tap at the door, and Charleen started up as the men drew their swords.

"Ser Davos."

It was the Red Woman. Pale-faced, she stepped into the room and stood beside the table upon which Jon's body was laid out.

"I saw him in the flames," she said in disbelief, her voice barely more than a whisper, "fighting at Winterfell."

At these words, a sudden rush of fury rose up in Charleen's chest. How she had wished that Jon might indeed one day fight at Winterfell, and win it back for the Starks! It was as if the Red Woman were mocking her. For all her sorcery, her fire-gazing and her spells, she had no power to make her visions come true, and yet here she was, reiterating her prophecy for Jon's future in the very presence of his corpse. How dared she even so much as show herself there, fraud that she was!

For a brief moment, the Red Woman looked up at Charleen and caught her gaze. Then, she lowered her eyes, turned away, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

The first light of dawn found Charleen slumped against the wall by the fireplace, listening with an odd feeling of detachment as the others discussed their situation. It seemed a foregone conclusion that the men who had killed Jon would eventually break down the door and slaughter the little group that had remained loyal to him, and what would happen to her then, Charleen could only imagine. A few weeks ago, a similar prospect had precipitated her headlong flight from Winterfell; now, however, she found that she did not care. The shock of Jon's death had rendered her completely numb, and all that she felt was emptiness.

"We all die today," she finally heard one of the men say. It was Edd Tollett – she had learnt his name in the course of the night, and also that he had been with Jon at Hardhome.

"We need to fight," Ser Davos replied, "but we don't need to die. Not if we have help. You're not the only ones who owe your lives to Jon Snow."

For a moment, Edd simply stared at him, then, understanding suddenly dawned on his face.

"Bolt the door," he said. "Don't let anyone in. I'll be back as soon as I can."

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

Edd had not been gone for very long when a loud thumping on the door once again made the men draw their swords.

"Ser Davos." It was a man's voice this time, and Charleen realized with a shudder that this was one of the traitors who had driven their blades into Jon's heart.

"We have no cause to fight," he continued. "We're both anointed knights."

"Hear that?" Ser Davos said, addressing the little group inside the room, "we've got nothing to fear."

His voice was thick with sarcasm, but the other seemed not to notice.

"I will grant amnesty to all Brothers who throw down their arms before nightfall," he promised, "and you, Ser Davos, I will allow you to travel south, a free man, with a fresh horse."

"And some mutton," Ser Davos demanded, clearly playing for time. "I'd like some mutton. I'm not much of a hunter. I'll need some food if I'm going to make it south without starving."

There was a pause, no doubt as the man outside tried to decide whether or not he was being mocked. Then, he answered as if Ser Davos had been in earnest.

"We'll give you food," he said. "You can bring the Red Woman and the girl with you, if you like, or you can leave them here with us, whichever you choose. But surrender by nightfall, or this ends with blood."

"Thank you, Ser Alliser," Ser Davos replied lightly. "We'll discuss amongst ourselves and come back to you with an answer."

Another pause followed. Finally, however, the sound of heavy footsteps was to be heard going down the stairs, and Ser Davos let out a long breath.

"I've been running from men like that all my life," he said, turning back to the little group inside the room, "and in my learned opinion, if we open that door, they'll slaughter us all."

"They want to come in, and they're going to come in," one of the Brothers interjected.

"Aye," said Ser Davos, "but we don't need to make it easy for them."

"Edd is our only chance," the other insisted.

Ser Davos looked away. "There's always the Red Woman," he said softly.

The other gave a snort of disbelief. "What's one redhead going to do against forty armed men?"

For a brief moment, Ser Davos remained silent, then, he raised his eyes to his interlocutor's face.

"You haven't seen her do what I've seen her do."

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

Ser Alliser remained true to his word. It was barely dusk when he returned, knocking on the door with an armour-clad fist.

"It's time, Ser Davos," he announced. "Open the door and the men inside can re-join their Brothers in peace. Nobody needs to die tonight."

From where she was sitting, Charleen could see Ser Davos' grip tightening on the hilt of his sword. He hesitated for a moment, then turned to face his companions.

"I've never been much of a fighter," he admitted, looking directly at Charleen. "My lady, apologies for what you're about to see."

With these words, he drew his sword from its sheath, and after a split second, the others followed suit, burnished steel flashing as it caught the light from the fire.

Instinctively, Charleen rose to her feet. She envied the men their weapons – they, at least, could prove their loyalty to their Lord Commander in one last act of resistance, whereas she was condemned simply to endure whatever was going to happen to her.

"Stand back," Ser Davos warned, and as she retreated behind the table on which Jon was lying, she could feel her legs beginning to shake.

From outside came Ser Alliser's voice murmuring a short command, the sound of shuffling footsteps, and then the heavy thud of some sort of implement against the door.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

The slats began to break, splintering inwards, and the thudding became louder.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

The wood finally gave, bursting open to reveal, for a split second, a gleam of metal.

But when the next blow fell upon the door, it was echoed by a resounding crash in the distance, beyond the courtyard, and for a moment, silence fell.

Then came another crash from outside, and another, and finally, a many-voiced roar of grief, of rage, of battle-frenzy: "Attack!"

The men inside the room stood frozen, their swords raised, eyes fixed upon the battered door.

"Edd…", one of the Brothers finally whispered, lowering his weapon, and the others followed suit.

In the courtyard, a brief noise of fighting had given way to silence once again, and at the sound of weapons clattering to the ground, Ser Davos opened the door and stepped outside. The Brothers followed him, but Charleen remained where she was. There were tears burning in her eyes, tears of shock and relief, but also of pain as the fear left her body and the full consciousness of Jon's death came flooding back.

She moved to his side and grasped his cold, stiff hand in both of hers, but almost immediately, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs made her draw back once again. A moment later, Ser Davos stepped into the room, followed by Edd Tollett and the red-haired wildling whom Charleen had seen talking to Jon on the day after his return from Hardhome. The wilding's eyes travelled down the entire length of Jon's body, coming to a rest on the blood-soaked tears in his jacket.

"Took a lot of knives," he said quietly. After a long moment, he raised his eyes, and his gaze fell on Charleen.

"Who's the girl?"

"Charleen of House Wollard," Ser Davos explained, before Charleen herself had time to find her voice. "She was raised by Jon's family and came here as a last resort to ask his help against their enemies."

"Charleen of House Wollard," the wildling repeated. "My name's Tormund. I first met Jon north of the Wall, a long time ago." He looked at her fixedly for a moment and then lowered his eyes to Jon's corpse once again.

"I'll have my men get wood for a fire. The body's to burn."


	4. Chapter 4

When the men had left, Charleen went over to the fireplace and sank down in a chair, burying her face in her hands. It had been almost an entire day since Ser Davos had come knocking on her door to get her to safety from Jon's killers, but the reality of the situation was still only beginning to sink in. Jon was dead, his corpse laid out right in front of her, yet all that she could feel was emptiness.

Many months ago, when news had reached Winterfell of the murder of Robb along with his mother and his new wife, Charleen had beat her fists against the walls of her room in helpless rage against the traitorous Freys and then sobbed herself to sleep, but now, there was no pain, nor grief, nor even anger. It was as if time had stood still, freezing her in a state of shock so deep that it left no room for emotion.

The fire in the grate had long since burnt itself out when the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside finally roused Charleen from her stupor. It was Ser Davos, followed by Edd Tollett and the wildling, Tormund. At the sight of the three men, a shiver passed down Charleen's spine.

"Is it time?" she asked faintly, moving to rise from her chair.

"No, my lady," Ser Davos replied, "not quite yet."

At his words, Tormund took a step forward into the room, revealing a fourth person to Charleen's astonished gaze – the Red Woman had returned.

"The Lady Melisandre", Ser Davos explained hesitantly, "knows of a spell that might –" he paused, motioning towards Jon with his head, "– help." He looked up at Charleen as if asking for her permission to proceed, but she simply stared at him in disbelief.

"Help?"

For a moment, she wanted to rush at Ser Davos and shake him – this woman had violated the memory of Jon's life with her false prophecies, and now she was to be allowed to desecrate his death, as well?

But then, Ser Davos's words from the previous night came back to her – 'you haven't seen her do what I've seen her do' – and she lowered her gaze.

The Red Woman lit a fire in a brazier and stood for a long moment gazing into the flames. Then, she turned around and said quietly, "I need to unclothe him. Will you help me?"

Without a word, Ser Davos moved to stand beside her, and together, they removed one layer after another of Jon's clothing until only his shirt and smallclothes were left. Charleen watched them from the corner by the fireplace, anger once again bubbling up in her chest as she remembered how she herself had helped Jon take off his clothes on the evening of his return from Hardhome. Seeing somebody else undressing him now felt like an intrusion into the moment of intimacy that they had shared, and she hated the Red Woman for it, the more so that the entire ritual could not be anything but a sham. In the mortal world, after all, death was final, and there was no power on earth – not even that of a priestess of the red god – that could bring Jon back.

When the Red Woman finally pulled off Jon's shirt and revealed the bandage around his ribcage, there was a murmur of surprise from the men. Edd Tollett exchanged a glance with Tormund and gave Charleen a questioning look, but she did not respond. At the sight of the bandage soaked with blood and torn by the blades of traitors, tears of fury had risen into her eyes. Thorne and his men had drawn blood where she had bandaged, had injured where she had sought to heal, had killed where she had cherished, and for a vertiginous moment, all the tortures that Ramsay Bolton had ever inflicted did not seem punishment enough for them.

In an effort to keep her outward composure, Charleen balled her hand into a fist, digging her nails into her palm. With tear-dimmed eyes, she watched as the Red Woman slowly began to unwrap the bandage from Jon's torso, revealing the gashes in his chest and abdomen from which his life's blood had spilled. She could hardly bear to see him like this, his wounded body exposed to the view of strangers, all its secrets laid bare to their sight. 'Nobody must know', Jon had implored her when she had first noticed that he was hurt on the night of his return, and at the same time he had placed himself into her trust by allowing her to take care of his injuries. Now, however, this trust had been violated. In the flickering light from the brazier, the bruises on Jon's right side stood out starkly against his pale skin, the contrast clearly visible even underneath the dried blood that covered his body, and Charleen felt a pang of jealousy at the sight. The Red Woman, Ser Davos, Tormund, even Edd Tollett – none of them had any right to see what Jon had entrusted to her alone! She wanted to shield Jon's body from their looks, to slap the Red Woman's hands away as she laid the bandage aside and began to unfasten Jon's smallclothes, but, inexplicably, Ser Davos' words – 'you haven't seen her do what I've seen her do' – kept her rooted to the spot.

When Jon was completely naked, the Red Woman covered his groin with a piece of linen and then began to wash the dried blood from his body, revealing one by one the grisly wounds that Thorne and his band of traitors had inflicted upon him. In the corner by the fireplace, Charleen stood motionless, watching the Red Woman's hands moving across Jon's skin, and another hot flash of anger coursed through her as she was reminded of how she herself had washed the cuts on Jon's side on the night of his return to Castle Black. To see another mimicking the intimacy that she had shared with him then was unbearable – it made her feel violated, almost as though the Red Woman were taking Jon away from her a second time.

Finally, the Red Woman stepped away from the table upon which Jon was lying. With a deep, almost shaky breath, she picked up a small pair of scissors and cut off a few strands of his hair, murmuring a prayer in a strange language that sounded harsh in Charleen's ears.

" _Zyhys oñoso jehikagon Aeksiot epi, se gis hen syndrorro jemagon_."

The Red Woman dropped the hair into the brazier, and the flame sputtered for a moment before accepting the fuel.

" _Zyhys perzys stepagon Aeksio Oño jorepi, se morghultas lys qelitsos sikagon_."

The Red Woman reached for a pitcher of water, rinsed Jon's hair, and wrung it out with her fingers. Then, she set the pitcher aside and slowly, very slowly, lowered both her hands to rest on Jon's upper body.

" _Hen syndrorro, oños. Hen ñuqir, perzys. Hen morghot, glaeson_."

She paused for a second and then repeated her prayer, first commandingly, then pleadingly, then falteringly.

"Please," she finally whispered, her voice breaking, but it was no use. Jon lay pale and still, the sheer physical evidence of his death suddenly exposing the absurdity of the ritual that had just been performed.

Recognizing her defeat, the Red Woman slowly lifted her hands away from Jon's body. She looked at Ser Davos for a moment with an almost imperceptible shake of the head, then, she abruptly turned and hurried from the room.

In the silence that followed, the fact of Jon's death suddenly hit Charleen with full force. Reeling, she stumbled towards the door as her emotions threatened to engulf her. She was angry at herself for having given in, against her own better judgement, to the hope that the Red Woman had seemed to offer, and at the same time, grief was crashing in upon her like a wave. She barely made it out of the room and down the stairs before it forced her to her knees. On the bottom step, Charleen sank down to the floor, burying her face in her hands, her whole body wracked with sobs. It was only at this moment that she finally admitted to herself the true nature of her feelings: she was mourning not only a dear friend and companion, but the man she had loved.

Her heart breaking, Charleen barely noticed when Tormund and Edd passed by her on their way out of the tower, nor when, a few minutes later, footsteps once again sounded on the stairs above her, hurried this time, and accompanied by a breathless call.

"Lady Charleen!"

It was Ser Davos. Catching sight of Charleen at the bottom of the stairs, he hastened forward and grabbed her by the shoulder, and she finally turned her head to look at him.

Ser Davos did not speak, but there was something in his face that immediately brought Charleen to her feet. Without a word, she followed him back up the stairs, and when they had reached the room where Jon's body had been laid out, he pushed open the door and stood aside to let her enter.

Charleen took a tentative step forward, across the threshold, and then froze in her tracks.

Jon was sitting – _sitting_ – on a stool beside the table upon which his body had lain a mere moments ago, wrapped in what appeared to be Ser Davos' cloak. He was hunched over, his breathing fast and laboured, but when Charleen appeared in the doorway, he raised his head to look at her.

"Charleen…"

Unable to move or make a sound, Charleen simply stared at him for a moment, but then Jon reached out for her with a shaking hand, and she rushed at him and wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could.

"Charleen," Jon whispered hoarsely, bringing his face close to her ear, "Charleen, I love you…"

Whatever Charleen might have expected him to say, it was not this. With a choked sob, she tightened her hold on him even further as fresh tears began to stream down her face.

For a moment, they remained locked in their embrace; then, the sound of footsteps on the stairs made Charleen draw away from Jon, although she kept her hand on his back as though to physically reassure herself of what she was as yet completely unable to comprehend.

It was the Lady Melisandre. Eyes wide, she paused in the doorway for a second, staring at Jon in utter disbelief. /

"The lady brought you back," Ser Davos explained to Jon.

At this, Melisandre hurried forward and dropped to her knees in front of Jon, staring intently at his face.

"After you died," she demanded urgently, "where did you go? What did you see?"

There was a moment's pause; then, Jon shook his head.

"Nothing," he said emphatically, "there was nothing at all."

"The Lord let you come back for a reason," Melisandre insisted. "Stannis was not the Prince Who Was Promised, but someone has to be."

She grasped Jon's arm imploringly, but Charleen had finally had enough.

"Could you give us a moment?" she asked, taking a step forward as if to position herself between Melisandre and Jon. Melisandre looked up at her uncertainly; then, she rose to her feet and moved towards the door, throwing Jon one last glance over her shoulder as she went.

When Melisandre had gone, Charleen turned back to Jon. In spite of Ser Davos' heavy cloak, he was still shivering, and Charleen fell back upon her training as a medic almost with relief.

"Come on, let's get you warm," she said to Jon. "Can you stand?"

At this, Ser Davos moved to Jon's other side, and together, they helped him to his feet. Jon seemed weak and unsteady – he leaned heavily on Ser Davos' arm, and as they slowly moved out of the room and up the stairs to his chambers, Charleen had to support him with her arm around his waist to keep him from falling.

When they finally reached Jon's bedroom, he sank into a chair by the empty fireplace with a stifled groan.

"That's it," Charleen reassured him softly, "take it easy."

She remained standing by his side for a moment while Ser Davos went to retrieve Jon's clothes, and then knelt down on the hearth to light a fire, keeping her back turned to give Jon some privacy as Ser Davos helped him to get dressed. When the flame had finally caught, she rose to her feet and moved towards the door.

"I'm going to get some hot wine," she said, "I'll be right back."

When she returned to Jon's chambers a few minutes later with a steaming cup of hot wine with honey in her hands, she found Ser Davos sitting by the fire across from Jon, talking to him earnestly.

"What does it matter?" he was saying. "You go on. You fight for as long as you can." He exhaled heavily and then turned around to look at Charleen, who had paused in the doorway so as not to interrupt.

"All right," he said, "I'm going to leave you two alone." He rose to his feet and moved past Charleen into the outer room and from there out into the stairwell, closing the door softly behind him.

Charleen waited until Ser Davos had gone, then, she took a step forward and crouched down in front of Jon. He had stopped shivering, but the chill of death still clung to his body, radiating off him as the heat would from someone who was feverish.

"Here," she said, holding the steaming cup of wine out to him, "try some of this. It'll warm you up."

Jon reached out for the proffered cup with a shaking hand, took a tentative sip and then another, slightly longer one.

"Charleen," he finally said, raising his head to look at her, "what I said earlier – it doesn't have to change anything between us. It was just –" he broke off, hesitating for a moment, "– I've always loved you as a friend, but when I came back from Hardhome to find you here, my feelings for you very quickly began to grow deeper, and when I – when they stabbed me –" he paused again, swallowing hard, "– one of the last things I remember is feeling regret that you'd never know."

His eyes met Charleen's, and he held her gaze for a moment before looking away.

"And then," he continued, "when I – when I woke up, I was – I had the chance to rectify what I'd regretted just before – before my _death_ , and I spoke without thinking. You know now how I feel about you, and I'm glad of it, but it's like I said – it doesn't have to change anything. I'll still be your friend, the way I've always been, and –"

At this, Charleen finally found her voice.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head, "no." And before Jon could say another word, she raised her face to his and kissed him.

She drew back again almost instantly, but her wordless avowal had sparked a fire between them that craved more fuel. Without taking his eyes off Charleen's face, Jon set aside his cup and then scooped her up into a passionate embrace.

"Charleen," he whispered, his voice choked with emotion, "my love…"

He held her tightly in his arms for a moment; then, they kissed again, longer this time, and Jon gently caressed the side of Charleen's face with his hand.

"Oh, Jon," she breathed, leaning into his touch even as she drew away from him a little, "what _are_ we going to do?"

"What are we going to do?" Jon repeated, a sudden fervour in his tone. He straightened up a little, his gaze fixed upon Charleen's face. "We're going to ride south with the free folk," he said, "I'm going to retake Winterfell and rescue my sister, and then I'm going to marry you in the godswood, under the old weirwood tree – by my life I swear that I will!"

He grasped Charleen's hands and pressed them tightly as he spoke, but she did not reciprocate.

"You can't," she whispered, shaking her head. "You've already sworn an oath…"

"Aye, I have," Jon replied bitterly. "I swore to take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. And I swore to live and die at my post, which is what I have done. I have fulfilled my oath, Charleen. My watch is ended."

There was a long silence; then, Charleen's fingers slowly tightened around Jon's.

"I love you, Jon," she breathed. "Don't ever leave me again."

And Jon put his arms around her and pulled her close.

"Never," he whispered, "my love, never."


	5. Chapter 5

"We can't defend the north from the Walkers _and_ the south from the Boltons," Jon said.

He straightened up from the map that was spread out on the table in front of him and looked in turn at Edd, Tormund, and Ser Davos, who were sitting on the opposite side.

"If we want to survive, we need Winterfell, and to take Winterfell, we need more men."

His face set, he turned to Charleen, who was seated beside him.

"How many men did you say the Boltons have in their army?"

"Five thousand," Charleen replied, repeating the information that she had given him over supper the day before. "I heard them say so when they were talking about Stannis' attack."

"Five thousand, aye," Jon continued. "And you, Tormund, how many people do you have that can fight?"

Tormund lowered his gaze.

"Two thousand," he said. "The rest are children and old people."

"Two thousand," Jon repeated. He exhaled heavily, but before he could say another word, Ser Davos spoke up.

"Aside from the Starks and the Boltons," he said, "the most powerful houses in the North are the Umbers, the Karstarks, and the Manderlys. The Karstarks have already declared for the Boltons, but the Umbers and the Manderlys –"

There was a loud knock at the door, and Ser Davos paused, looking at Jon.

"Come in!", Jon called.

The door opened and one of the Black Brothers stepped into the room, holding a scroll of parchment in his hand.

"A letter for you, Lord Commander," he said.

"I'm not Lord Commander any more," Jon told him, but he held out his hand and took the letter all the same. As he did so, Charleen caught a glimpse of a bright red seal with a cross-shaped figure stamped in the middle – the flayed man of House Bolton. She took a deep breath, and Jon briefly caught her gaze before he tore open the seal and unfurled the letter.

"To the traitor and bastard Jon Snow," he read. "You allowed thousands of Wildlings past the Wall. You have betrayed your own kind. You have betrayed the North. Winterfell is mine, bastard, come and see. Your brother Rickon is in my dungeon –"

His voice faltered, and he looked up at Charleen, who stared back at him in horror. There was a moment's absolute silence, then, Jon turned back to the letter and continued to read.

His direwolf's skin is on my floor. Surrender the Night's Watch and all your wildling friends, and I will not trouble you. Refuse, and I will ride north and slaughter every wildling man, woman and babe living under your protection. You will watch as I skin them living. I –"

He paused again, staring at the letter with clenched jaws.

"Go on," Charleen urged, but Jon let the parchment slip from his hands, and it furled up on the table in front of him.

"It's just more of the same."

"Please," Charleen insisted. Whatever else Ramsay might have in store, she felt, it was better to hear it all at once.

Jon looked at her uncertainly for a moment, then, he took a deep breath and picked the letter up again.

"I will find your little medic friend," he read, "and you will watch as my soldiers take turns raping her. You will watch as my dogs devour your wild little brother. Then I will spoon your eyes from their sockets and let my dogs do the rest. Come and see. Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North."

There was a long silence.

"Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North," Jon finally repeated. "His father's dead?"

He looked to Charleen for an answer, but she shrugged her shoulders.

"Roose Bolton was alive and well when I left Winterfell," she said. "I don't know what happened to him, but whatever it was, I'm sure Ramsay had a hand in it."

Jon nodded slowly and then glanced back at the letter.

"There's no mention of Sansa," he remarked.

Charleen bit her lip. "Perhaps because she's too valuable," she suggested. "She's a Stark, and she can give him an heir. If he threatened her and had to make good on his threat, it would harm him more than you."

Jon nodded again. "Aye," he said, "you're right. He needs Sansa. Rickon, on the other hand –"

He left his sentence unfinished, but Charleen knew exactly what he meant. Sansa might be more useful to Ramsay alive than dead, but Rickon, Ned Stark's last surviving son, was a danger to him and would therefore not live long.

Her gaze met Jon's, and for a moment, she saw her own pain reflected in his eyes. Then, he took a deep breath, set aside the letter, and straightened up in his chair.

"Rickon was supposed to seek refuge with House Umber," he said with a glance at Ser Davos. "Now Ramsay has him, which probably means that the Umbers have declared for House Bolton. But there are more than three other houses in the North aside from the Starks and the Boltons. Glover, Mormont, Cerwyn, Mazin, Hornwood – two dozen more. Together they equal all the others. We can start small and build."

He looked around at the others, who nodded in approval.

"You are the son of the last true Warden of the North," Charleen pointed out. "The North remembers. Northern families are loyal; they'll fight for you if they ask."

"They may well be loyal," Ser Davos cautioned, "but how many rose up against the Boltons when they betrayed the Starks? I may not know the North, but I know men, and even the bravest of them don't want to see their wives and children skinned for a lost cause. If Jon's going to convince them to fight alongside him, they need to believe it's a fight they can win."

There was a brief silence; then, Charleen spoke up again.

"What about House Arryn?" she asked. "They're not Northern, but Lord Robin emis/em Sansa's and Rickon's cousin – he might send the Knights of the Vale to help us."

Jon lowered his gaze to the map once again.

"Aye, it's worth a try," he said slowly. "I'm going to send a messenger to the Vale as soon as we have gained some allies in the North."

"Stark, Arryn, a few Northern Houses," Ser Davos listed, "that's good. Almost starts to look like a winning side."

"And the free folk," Jon added, turning to look at Tormund. "Are you sure they'll come?"

"We're not clever like you Southerners," Tormund answered, a roguish smile stealing across his face. "When we say we'll do something, we do it."

The corners of Jon's mouth twitched upwards in turn. "Aye," he said, "you do."

He looked around at the others, and his face became serious again.

"We ride south in two days," he announced. "Our first destination is Bear Island, the seat of House Mormont. Lady Lyanna Mormont is the niece of our late Lord Commander Mormont, and she's loyal to the Starks. When King Stannis asked the Northern lords to commit their houses to his cause, her response was that Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark. Stannis showed me her letter. Now, I may not have the Stark name, but I do have Stark blood, and Bear Island therefore seems like a good place to start."

He looked in turn at Tormund, Ser Davos, and Charleen, and they signalled their agreement in silence.

"All right," Jon concluded. He took a deep breath and looked up at Edd, who met his gaze and held it.

"Before I go," Jon said, "there's one thing I still need to do.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

The courtyard of Castle Black was full of people. Black Brothers and free folk alike had gathered there, their eyes all turned towards the wooden platform at the base of the Wall from which the winch cage was operated. On the platform, four men were standing on a board balanced upon two large barrels, which were in turn connected to the counterweight of the winch by two heavy iron chains. Holding up the counterweight was a thick rope that ran across the pulley and down to the floor of the platform, where it was tied to a heavy iron ring.

From her position at the front of the crowd, Charleen watched as two Black Brothers bound the hands of the four men behind their backs and fastened heavy coils of rope around their necks. They slung the ends of the ropes across a wooden beam above the prisoners' heads and then descended from the platform to resume their places among the spectators.

A moment later, the door at the foot of the King's Tower opened and a hush fell over the crowd as Jon emerged with Edd following behind him. All eyes were upon them as they made their way to the platform and up the steps towards the prisoners. Jon walked slowly, his black cloak seeming to weigh heavy upon his shoulders. He went to stand in front of the four men and looked at them in silence.

"If you have any last words," he said finally, "now's the time."

"You shouldn't be alive," the man on the left blurted out. "It's not right!"

Jon raised his head to look at him, but his response was too quiet to make out. After a moment, he moved towards the next man, an elderly fellow with thinning hair and a weather-beaten face, whose voice when he spoke sounded choked, as though the noose around his neck were already too tight.

The third man was Ser Alliser Thorne. He fixed his cold, grey eyes on Jon, but his voice was loud enough at least for those at the front of the crowd to hear.

"I had a choice, Lord Commander," he proclaimed. "Betray you, or betray the Night's Watch. You brought an army of wildlings into our lands." He looked up, his eyes sweeping across the crowd. "An army of murderers and raiders. If I had to do it all over, knowing where I'd end up, I pray I'd make the right choice again."

He paused and looked down at Jon once again. "I fought," he said, "I lost. Now I rest. But you, Lord Snow, you'll be fighting their battles forever."

With that, he raised his head, his gaze wandering out into the distance beyond the courtyard, and for a brief moment, Charleen could not help but admire him. A sworn brother of the Night's Watch, Thorne had remained true to the principles of his order as he understood them, had betrayed his Lord Commander to defend them, and was now prepared to pay the price.

With bated breath, she watched as Jon turned away from Thorne and moved to stand in front of the fourth prisoner – his steward, Olly. The boy's childlike features were contorted into an expression of hatred, which did not soften even as Jon looked up at him. He did not speak, and after a long moment, Jon finally turned away. To his left, the rope that held the counterweight ran down from the pulley to the floor, and Jon moved to stand before it, drawing his sword as he went. For a moment, he hesitated, and Charleen saw his shoulders moving with each heavy breath. Then, a spasm of emotion crossed his face, and in one swift motion, he raised his sword above his head and brought it down, severing the rope.

The counterweight came down with a crash, pulling the barrels out from under the board, and as the prisoners fell, the nooses tightened around their necks. From the corner of her eyes, Charleen saw some of the Black Brothers turning away, but she kept her gaze fixed upon the four men as they gasped and choked, their bodies convulsing grotesquely as their life's breath left them.

When they finally hung still, Jon sheathed his sword and walked across the platform to where Edd was standing. He unfastened his black cloak, slipped it from his shoulders, and put it in Edd's outstretched hands.

"You have Castle Black," he said. "My watch is ended."

The other bowed his head.

"Good luck."

The two men embraced; then, Jon turned away and slowly came down the steps. Without his cloak, he appeared smaller somehow, more vulnerable, but he also seemed to be moving with greater ease, as though a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He passed along the front of the crowd and stopped in front of Charleen. Their eyes met, and Jon wordlessly held out his hand. Without a moment's hesitation, Charleen grasped it in hers, and so they passed through the crowd, who moved aside silently to let them pass. Only Ser Davos, Tormund, and Melisandre stepped forward to follow them, and together, they went out through the gate to where their horses stood waiting.


	6. Chapter 6

The seat of House Mormont of Bear Island was an old stone castle that stood perched upon a rock at the edge of a lake surrounded by high, wooded mountains. In the great hall, Lady Mormont, a girl of eleven, sat between her maester and the captain of her guards, and eyed her visitors suspiciously.

"Lady Mormont," Jon greeted her, and her shrewd, dark eyes darted to his face.

"Welcome to Bear Island," she said curtly.

For a moment, Jon seemed unsure how to continue.

"I served under your uncle at Castle Black, Lady Lyanna," he finally offered. "He was a great warrior and an honourable man. I was his steward. In fact –"

"There's no need for small talk," Lyanna cut across him. "Why are you here?"

Taken aback by her bluntness, Jon hesitated for a second.

"Stannis Baratheon garrisoned at Castle Black before he marched on Winterfell and was killed," he explained. "He showed me the letter you wrote to him when he petitioned for men. It said –"

"I remember what it said," Lyanna interrupted again. "'Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark.'"

Jon nodded. "House Stark is not gone," he said, "and it needs your support now more than ever. I've come here to ask for House Mormont's allegiance."

Instead of an answer, Lyanna turned to her maester, who leaned towards her and murmured something in her ear.

"As far as I understand," she finally declared, "you're a Snow, not a Stark."

Jon took a deep breath. "Ramsay Bolton cannot be allowed to keep Winterfell, my lady," he said. "It is our duty to stop him, even more so because he forced my sister, Sansa Stark, to marry him against her will, and is holding my brother, Rickon Stark, as prisoner. What you have to understand, my lady, is that –"

Once again, Lyanna cut across him.

"I understand that I'm responsible for Bear Island and all who live here," she declared. "Dozens of Mormont men and women died fighting for your brother Robb. My mother was one of them. So why should I sacrifice one more Mormont life for someone else's war?"

She sounded almost angry, and Jon seemed at a loss for what to say. He turned to Charleen for help, but before she could speak, Ser Davos stepped forward.

"If it please my lady," he said calmly, "I understand how you feel."

Lyanna looked at him in surprise. "I don't know you," she admitted, "Ser –?"

"Davos, my lady, of House Seaworth. You needn't ask your maester about my house," he added with a small smile as Lyanna turned to the old man again with a questioning look on her face, "it's rather new."

"All right, Ser Davos of House Seaworth," Lyanna said, "how is it you understand how I feel?"

"You never thought you'd find yourself in your position. Being responsible for so many lives at such a young age. _I_ never thought I'd be in _my_ position. I was a crabber's son, then I was a smuggler, and now I find myself addressing the lady of a great house in time of war. But I'm here because this isn't someone else's war. It's _our_ war."

He paused to see what effect his words would have, but Lyanna's face was impassive.

"Go on, Ser Davos."

"Your uncle, Lord Commander Mormont, made that man his steward," Ser Davos continued, pointing at Jon. "He chose Jon to be his successor because he knew he had the courage to do what was right, even if it meant giving his life. Because Jeor Mormont and Jon Snow both understood that the real war isn't between a few squabbling houses. It's between the living and the dead. And make no mistake, my lady, the dead are coming."

He paused, and Lyanna looked at Jon.

"Is this true?"

Jon nodded. "Your uncle fought them at the Fist of the First Men," he said gravely. "I fought them at Hardhome. We both lost."

"As long as the Boltons hold Winterfell," Ser Davos added, "the North is divided. And a divided North won't stand a chance against the Night King. You want to protect your people, my lady, I understand. But there's no hiding from this. We have to fight, and we need to do it together."

At this, the maester leaned in to whisper something to Lyanna, but she held up her hand to silence him.

"House Mormont has kept faith with House Stark for a thousand years," she declared. "We will not break faith today."

Jon let out a heavy breath. "Thank you, my lady," he said; then, hesitating slightly, he added: "How many fighting men can we expect?"

Lyanna took a moment to confer in a low voice with her captain of the guards and then straightened up again.

"Sixty-two."

"Sixty-two?" Jon repeated incredulously.

"We are not a large house," Lyanna pointed out, "but we're a proud one. And every man from Bear Island fights with the strength of ten mainlanders."

She glared at Jon, but before he could reply, Ser Davos spoke.

"If they are half as ferocious as their lady," he said, a small smile playing around his mouth, "the Boltons are doomed."

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

"The answer is no," Lord Glover growled. A balding, broad-shouldered man with a short white beard, he stood in the courtyard of his castle at Deepwood Motte with his arms crossed and a disapproving expression upon his face. He had refused to welcome Jon into his hall, and his demeanour in the course of their outdoor parlay now seemed to finally quench what little hope they had left of gaining his support.

However, Jon would not give up easily.

"Lord Glover," he pleaded, "if you could just hear us out –"

"I've heard enough," the other interrupted him. "We've only just taken back this castle from the Ironborn. The Boltons helped us do it. Now you want me to fight against them? I could be skinned for even talking to you."

"The Boltons are traitors," Jon insisted. "Roose Bolton –"

Again, Lord Glover cut across him.

"Have other northern houses pledged to fight for you?"

"House Mormont," Jon said.

Lord Glover raised his eyebrows. "And –?"

"We've sent ravens to Houses Manderly –"

"I don't care about ravens," Lord Glover interrupted. "You're asking me to join your army. Who's fighting in this army?"

Jon exchanged a glance with Ser Davos. "The bulk of the force is made up of wildlings," he admitted.

Lord Glover gave a short, derisive laugh. "Then the rumours are true," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't dare believe them." He looked at Jon in disdain. "I received you out of respect for your father. Now I would like you to leave. House Glover will not abandon its ancestral home to fight alongside _wildlings_." He spat the last word out in disgust and then turned abruptly and started up the stairs to the door of his keep.

"Lord Glover," Jon called after him, "I –"

"There's nothing else to say," the other cut across him.

At this, Charleen finally found her voice.

"I would remind you that House Glover is pledged to House Stark, sworn to answer when called upon," she called out sharply, ignoring Jon's look of surprise. "The heir of House Stark is being held prisoner by the Boltons, Lord Glover, and here is his brother summoning you to fight for him."

Lord Glover paused; then, he turned and came back down the steps to draw himself up in front of Charleen.

"Yes, Lady Wollard," he growled, "my family served House Stark for centuries. We wept when we heard of Ned Stark's death. When my brother was lord of this castle, he answered Robb's call and hailed him King in the North."

He took another step towards her, but Charleen stood her ground.

"And where was King Robb when the Ironborn attacked this castle?" Lord Glover hissed at her. "When they threw my wife and children in prison and brutalized and killed our subjects? Taking up with a foreign whore. Getting himself and those who followed him killed." He paused, and looked at Jon. "I served House Stark once," he concluded, "but House Stark is dead."

And with this, he turned, went up the steps, and disappeared through the great wooden door into the castle.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

Stretched out at the bottom of the hillside, the camp appeared endless, a vast sprawling city of tents, carts, and banners, but Jon's brow was furrowed as his gaze swept across it.

"Stannis camped here on his way to Winterfell," Ser Davos said, clearly hoping to offer some good news.

"And that's a good thing?" Charleen asked sceptically, remembering the bedraggled troop of infantrymen that she had seen advancing towards Winterfell on the day after her escape from the castle.

"He was the most experienced commander in Westeros," Ser Davos replied. "He chose this place for a reason. Those hills are a natural fortification, there's a stream down there for the horses –"

"We're not staying here long," Jon interrupted. "Another storm could hit any day. We have to march on Winterfell now, while we still can."

He turned and started down the hillside, and the other two followed him.

"Two thousand wildlings," Ser Davos listed, "two hundred Hornwoods, a hundred and forty-three Mazins, sixty-two Mormonts. It's not what we hoped for. But we still have a chance, if we're careful and smart."

He halted for a moment, but Charleen hurried onward and grabbed Jon's hand.

"It's not enough," she said desperately, "we need more men!"

Jon stopped, and turned to look at her. "There's no time," he insisted, though his tone was gentle. "We need to fight with the army we have. But Ser Davos is right – we do still have a chance."

He drew her towards him and soothingly caressed her head, but before he could say another word, they both caught sight of a figure hurrying up the side of the hill towards them.

It was one of the Mormont men. "My lord," he called breathlessly, "a letter for you!"

He held out a scroll of parchment, and Jon hurried forward to take it. Glancing at the seal, he tore it open, unfurled the scroll, and rapidly scanned its contents. Then, he held the letter out to Charleen with a grim smile upon his face.

"It seems like we _are_ going to be staying here a little while," he said. "It's from Lord Arryn's chief commander. They Knights of the Vale are encamped at Moat Cailin. They can be at Winterfell in twenty days."


	7. Chapter 7

On a frosty day a little more than three weeks later, Jon and his party emerged from the Wolfswood just north of Winterfell and halted their horses at the bottom of a low knoll. Beyond, the walls and towers of the castle stood out against the cloudy sky, solid and unshakeable, like a promise. _Home._

From where she was standing, it seemed impossible to Charleen that Winterfell should no longer belong to House Stark, but then a group of riders came into view atop the knoll, and her stomach twisted as she caught sight of the Bolton banners flying above their heads.

The riders came cantering down the hillside towards them. Ramsay himself was at the head of the group, flanked by Lord Karstark and a man with long black hair and beard whom Charleen did not recognise. They stopped within a few yards of her and Jon, and scrutinized them in silence.

"Lady Wollard," Ramsay finally said, his face breaking into a smile that sent shivers down Charleen's spine. "I'm glad to see that you've made it back safely." Then, he turned to Jon, and his eyes narrowed. "Now, bastard, why are you leading these poor souls into slaughter? You don't have the men, you don't have the horses, and you don't have Winterfell." His voice cracked with amusement. "There's no need for a battle. Dismount and kneel before me, surrender your army, and proclaim me the true Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. I will pardon you for deserting the Night's Watch. I will pardon these treasonous lords for betraying my House. Just get off your horse and kneel. I am a man of mercy." The corners of his mouth twitched upwards into a triumphant smile, and Charleen's hands balled into fists around the reins of her horse.

There was a brief silence; then, Jon spoke. "You're right," he said calmly, "there's no need for a battle. Thousands of men don't need to die. Only one of us." He paused. "Let's end this the old way – you against me."

At these words, Charleen glanced at Jon in surprise, but his gaze remained fixed on Ramsay's face.

Instead of an answer, Ramsay slowly began to chuckle. "I keep hearing stories about you, bastard," he said. "The way people in the North talk about you, you're the greatest swordsman who ever walked. And maybe you are that good." He shrugged. "Maybe not. I don't know if I'd beat you. But I know that my army will beat yours. I have six thousand men. You have, what, half that? Not even?"

"Aye, you have the numbers," Jon cut in. "But will your men want to fight for you, when they hear you wouldn't fight for them?"

For the first time, Ramsay appeared discomfited. Searching for an answer to Jon's taunt, he ran his tongue over his lips and huffed in frustration.

"He's good, _very_ good" he finally spat, pointing a finger at Jon with a strained attempt at derision. "Tell me, bastard, will you let your little brother die because you're too proud to surrender?"

Emboldened by Jon's success, Charleen attempted another challenge.

"How do we know you have him?"

Ramsay looked at her for a moment, his face inscrutable. Then, he slowly turned to the man with the long black beard and signalled to him with a nod. The other reached into his saddlebag, drew out a large, dark object, and threw it on the ground before Charleen and Jon.

It was the head of a direwolf, his black fur matted with blood. Shaggydog.

Charleen felt as if she had been punched in the gut. With great effort, she tore her gaze away from the sight before her and looked at Ramsay once again.

"He's a fine young lad, your brother," Ramsay smirked at Jon. "My dogs are desperate to meet him." His voice broke into a chuckle. "I haven't fed them for seven days. They're ravenous. I wonder which parts they'll try first. His eyes? His balls?" He paused for a moment, savouring the effect of his words. "We'll find out soon enough. In the morning, then, bastard?"

"Aye," Jon said, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. "In the morning."

He lowered his gaze, but Charleen was determined to spoil Ramsay's victory. "You're going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton," she declared. "Sleep well."

And she turned her horse around, towards the Wolfswood, and spurred him to a gallop, and the others followed suit.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

In the evening, when darkness had fallen, Jon summoned his officers to his tent to discuss the coming battle. On the table in front of him, a map was spread out with painted pebbles upon it representing the two armies that would meet in the morning. Charleen sat by Jon's side, her brow furrowed as she looked at the little group of rocks that was facing off against three rows of Bolton pebbles.

She looked up when Jon's men began to file into the tent. There was a stranger among them, an older man with white hair, but strong and shrewd looking, clad in a full set of plate armour that gleamed dully in the dim light of the candles illuminating the tent.

He took his place at the table with the others, and when they were all seated, Jon rose to his feet.

"My lords and ladies, this is Lord Royce," he said, indicating the stranger, "commander of the Knights of the Vale in the name of Lord Robin Arryn of the Eyrie. Lord Royce, you are most welcome here."

"Thank you, my lord."

Lord Royce rose in his turn, and bowed his head slightly to Jon before turning to address the table at large.

"My lords, my ladies, I have been sent by Lord Arryn to assist his cousins Sansa and Rickon Stark against their enemies, the Boltons," he said. "Since Lord Arryn is not yet of age, the Vale is being ruled in his stead by his stepfather, Lord Petyr Baelish of the Fingers. Lord Baelish brokered the marriage between Sansa Stark and Ramsay Bolton, and the Boltons therefore believe him to be their ally. Tomorrow, they shall find that they are mistaken – to their dismay, I hope."

He resumed his seat, and the others murmured their approval before turning back to Jon.

"If Ramsay Bolton was smart, he'd stay inside the walls of Winterfell and wait us out," he said, and then with a glance at Charleen invited her to contribute.

"That's not his way," she declared. "Ramsay knows the North is watching. If the other houses sense weakness on his part, they'll stop fearing him. He can't have that. Fear is his power."

"It's his weakness, too," Jon added. "His men don't _want_ to fight for him, they're _forced_ to fight for him. If they feel the tide turning –"

"It's not his men that worry me," Tormund cut in, "it's his horses. I know what mounted knights can do to us." He nodded at Ser Davos. "You and Stannis cut through us like piss through snow."

"We're digging trenches all along our flanks," Jon told him. "They won't be able to hit us the way that Stannis hit you, in a double envelopment."

Clearly uncomprehending, Tormund simply stared at him.

"A pincer move," Jon explained, but Tormund's face remained blank.

"They won't be able to hit you from the sides," Jon offered, and finally, Tormund nodded.

"Good."

There was a pause; then, Ser Davos spoke up.

"It's crucial that we let them charge at us. They've got the numbers, we need the patience. If we let him buckle our centre, he'll pursue. Then we'll have him surrounded on three sides."

"At which point the Knights of the Vale are going to attack him from the rear," Jon added. He exchanged a look with Lord Royce, and they both nodded. "We'll have Ramsay in a full encirclement."

"Did you really think that cunt would fight you man-to-man?" Tormund asked.

Jon shook his head.

"No. But I wanted to make him angry. I want him coming at us full tilt." He took a deep breath. "We should all get some sleep. We make ready at first light."

As the others rose and made to leave their tent, Charleen turned to look at Jon, but his gaze was fixed upon the retreating backs of his captains.

"Lady Lyanna," he called, "may I have a word?"

Lyanna Mormont had almost reached the opening of the tent, and she turned around with a look of surprise on her face.

"Of course," she said, moving to resume her former seat at the table.

Jon waited until all the others had left the tent, and then turned to the two women with a grave look upon his face.

"Lady Lyanna, I have a favour to ask of you," he said. "If the battle goes badly tomorrow, if I fall, I am asking you to protect Lady Charleen. Take her back to Bear Island with you. Keep her safe."

Lyanna looked from him to Charleen, and nodded.

"You have my word," she said. "Lady Charleen, whatever may happen tomorrow, you will always find safety with House Mormont."

Struggling against the lump in her throat, Charleen took a moment to find her voice.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You have my thanks, Lady Lyanna," Jon echoed. "Goodnight."

When Lyanna had left, Charleen turned to look at Jon with tears brimming in her eyes.

"Jon, if you fall –"

"I don't expect the Lady Melisandre to bring me back a second time."

Stifling a sob, Charleen rose from her chair and slipped into Jon's outstretched arms. A moment later, however, the flap of the tent was opened from the outside and she drew back hastily.

It was one of Tormund's men.

"There's someone here asking to see you, Lord Snow," he said. "She walked right up to guards and demanded to speak to the commander of the camp."

 _She?_

Charleen's heart leapt – could Sansa, by some miracle, have escaped the castle and come to find her brother?

When, at Jon's command, the man moved aside and let the newcomer enter, however, her hope was disappointed. The woman who stepped into the tent appeared to be almost twice Sansa's size – in width certainly if not quite in height. She was clad in plate and mail, with a sword girt around her waist, and her yellow hair was cropped short like a man's. Behind her came a young man, a boy almost, wearing leather armour, whose uncertain demeanour stood in stark contrast to the woman's apparent confidence.

"My lord, my lady," she said, drawing herself up to her full height, "my name is Brienne of Tarth, and this is Podrick Payne. I served Lady Catelyn Stark as her sworn sword. I promised that I would find her daughters and protect them. And I intend to keep that promise. Will you allow me to fight with you for Lady Sansa's freedom?"

"Anyone who wishes to fight for House Stark is welcome in my camp, my lady," Jon replied, "but our enemies are cunning, and I don't know that I can trust you."

"I have news of your other sister," Brienne replied. "She made it out of King's Landing alive. I saw her in the Riverlands, with a man. I don't think he hurt her. She didn't want to leave him, and he didn't want to leave her."

Jon looked at her sceptically.

"You don't know where she went?"

"I spent three days looking for her. She disappeared."

"How did she look?"

"She looked good." Brienne hesitated. "She wasn't exactly dressed like a lady."

A smile flickered across Jon's face. "No, she wouldn't be."

"And she was carrying a weapon – a smallsword," Brienne continued. "She seemed to know how to use it, too. Said it was called Needle."

 _Needle._

Charleen stared at Brienne, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing. There was silence for a moment; then, Jon said,

"Lady Brienne, you are welcome in my camp. I wish you good fortune in the battle."

His voice was husky, and he turned away from her as soon as he had finished speaking.

"Thank you, my lord."

She made to leave the tent, signalling to the boy, Podrick, to follow her, and when they had gone, Charleen looked at Jon, fresh tears brimming in her eyes.

"Arya –"

Jon reached out and clasped her hand tightly in his.

"One more reason for us to retake Winterfell."

"You have to be careful tomorrow," Charleen pleaded. "Ramsay likes to play with people. He knows you're fighting for your home, for your family. Don't let him use that against you."

Jon's face darkened.

"You mean that whatever he might say, we're not getting Rickon back alive."

Charleen hesitated for a second. "Rickon is Ned Stark's trueborn son," she said. "As long as he lives, Ramsay's claim to Winterfell will be contested, which means –" she looked away, " – he won't live long."

Jon exhaled deeply.

"And what about Sansa?" he finally said. "Ramsay didn't mention her at all this morning."

"I don't like that," Charleen admitted. "I still believe what I said at Castle Black – that Sansa's too valuable for Ramsay to use her as leverage – but I still would have expected him at least to taunt you on her account."

Jon stared down at the map, and as his gaze swept across the painted rocks, his face hardened.

"I'm not giving up on my siblings," he said. "I've fought against worse than Ramsay Bolton. I've _defeated_ worse than Ramsay Bolton."

He looked up at Charleen, his dark eyes burning in the dim light.

"Tomorrow, Winterfell will belong to the Starks again."


	8. Chapter 8

_The Battle of the Bastards gave me an opportunity for some more hurt/comfort, and of course I couldn't resist. ;)  
_ _Also, a **warning** : here be non-canon character death.  
Please read and review! _

Among the dense trees of the wolfswood, the noise of the battle sounded faint and muffled, but to Charleen, the sounds seemed sharp and clear, as though she were herself standing on the battlefield among the clashing of weapons and the screams of dying men. Her horse fidgeted nervously underneath her, and she gripped the reins with shaking fingers.

 _Don't watch_ , Jon had told her. _Ready your horse, and if the battle goes ill, ride north with Lady Lyanna at once._

But she couldn't. Ever since Jon and his men had left their camp at daybreak, she had been inching closer and closer to the field of battle, and Lyanna Mormont had followed her in silence, determined, it seemed, not to let her out of her sight.

In this way, the edge of the trees had finally come into view, and Charleen once again found herself loosening her grip on her horse's reins, allowing him to take a few steps forward. She could not see much of what was happening beyond the forest, but the battle seemed to have moved further away, towards the castle.

All of a sudden, her eyes fell upon a single rider galloping across the battlefield away from Winterfell, and without thinking, she dug her heels into her horse's flanks and rushed forward to meet him.

It was Ser Davos. Catching sight of her, he raised an arm above his head in greeting and called out to her.

"Victory!" he shouted, "victory! Winterfell is ours, my lady."

Charleen pulled on her horse's reins so hard that he reared a little, his hooves skidding on the muddy ground as he came to a halt.

"Jon?"

"Alive, last I saw him," Ser Davos panted.

Charleen did not wait for more. Urging her horse forward with a kick, she charged up the side of the hill and out across the level field where the battle had taken place.

She had expected bodies scattered upon the ground, a grisly sight of men and horses lying in pools of their own blood, but what she saw instead was so far beyond her imagination that it took her a moment to comprehend.

It was a mound of bodies, piled one on top of the other to at least twice the height of a man.

At the same instant, the stench reached Charleen's nostrils – a sickly-sweet whiff of blood mixed with the foetid tang of excrement – and she averted her face in horror, fighting to keep control of her shying horse as she urged him on up the hill towards Winterfell.

She looked up again only once they had passed the grisly heap. Beyond, still more bodies littered her path, but she kept her eyes fixed upon the walls of the castle until the North Gate finally came into her sight.

The gate appeared to stand open – or rather, Charleen realised as she approached, it had been smashed with such force that the great wooden door bar had splintered like a stick. Just inside the door, an enormous shape was lying upon the ground. It was the giant, Wun Wun, peppered with dozens upon dozens of arrows.

Charleen tore through the gate into the courtyard and jumped off her horse almost at full gallop. A few yards behind the corpse of the giant, Jon was kneeling over the prone figure of Ramsay Bolton, pounding his face with his fist. He was covered from head to toe in blood, mud, and gore, his breath coming in heavy gasps as he punched Ramsay again, and again, and again.

"Where's Sansa?" Jon growled. "Where's my sister?"

At this, Ramsay's face suddenly split into a grin, his teeth gleaming white between blood-smeared lips.

"She's dead," he spluttered. "Tried to run away. Didn't make it. We found her body in the woods near the Long Lake."

All the fight seemed to go out of Jon at once. His hands fell limply to his sides, and he let his head sink down upon his chest. Slowly, very slowly, he pushed himself up on one knee and stood, his gaze still fixed upon Ramsay's face.

"Take him away," he ordered tonelessly.

At once, several men hurried forward. They grabbed Ramsay by the arms and dragged him across the muddy ground in the direction of the dungeons.

Jon remained where he was, staring after the retreating group. Suddenly, his knees seemed to grow weak beneath him and he stumbled. Charleen was by his side in an instant, taking some of his weight against her own body and steadying him with her arm around his waist.

"Are you hurt?" she asked him urgently.

Jon turned to look at her and slowly shook his head, but his face was completely blank, his gaze unfocused as though he were looking right through her.

"Come on," Charleen said, "let's go inside."

She guided him across the courtyard and into the Great Keep, where a group of servants was huddled just inside the door, their faces pale with fear.

"My lady!" they exclaimed when Charleen and Jon stepped across the threshold, "oh, thank the Gods!"

"House Stark has returned," Charleen told them. "Prepare the lord's chamber, and draw a bath for Lord Jon. And have some fresh water brought to my chamber, please."

While the servants hastened to do as she had bid, Charleen helped Jon up the stairs and into her own chamber on the first floor of the Keep.

The room was exactly as she had left it on the night of her escape from Winterfell, right down to the mortar on the table where she had been grinding up dried herbs for a salve.

"Here, Jon, sit down," Charleen said gently, guiding Jon across the room to her chair.

"But –" Jon hesitated, clumsily motioning at his clothes, "I'm covered in filth…"

"It doesn't matter," Charleen insisted, "I'll clean up later."

She gently pressed Jon down into the chair, and he looked up at her with the same distant expression on his face that he had worn ever since he had learned of Sansa's fate.

"Rickon's gone," he said faintly. "It was as you said – Ramsay used him to bait me and then put an arrow through his heart."

It was no more than Charleen had expected, but to hear the truth of it still felt like a punch in the gut. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around Jon and held him close, fighting back tears. Rickon was dead, and so was Sansa, sweet, strong, beautiful Sansa, whose suffering should have not ended like this.

There was a knock on the door, and Charleen let go of Jon, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Come in."

It was a young servant girl whom Charleen did not recognize, carrying a large pitcher of water. The girl stared in horror at Charleen's cloak and dress, which were soiled with gore from where they had touched Jon's body, but Charleen ignored her look.

"Thank you," she said, taking the pitcher from her and setting it down on the table. She took a cup from a shelf at the far end of the room and poured Jon some water.

"Here," she said softly, handing Jon the cup, "you must be thirsty."

Nodding, Jon reached for the cup with a shaking hand and gulped down the water. Underneath the blood and grime caked on his face, he was very pale, and Charleen worried that he was going into shock.

"Jon, we need to get you out of these clothes," she said. "I need to make sure you're not injured."

The metal clasps of Jon's armour were slick with blood, and Charleen unfastened them with some difficulty. The quilted gambeson underneath appeared comparatively clean, and Charleen breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that on Jon's torso, at least, there were no bloodstains coming from inside the garment.

She gently pulled Jon's gloves off his hands and began to undo the strings of his gambeson when there was another knock at the door, and an elderly servant of the Starks, Palla, stuck her head into the room.

"We've a bath ready, my lady," she said, "upstairs, in the lord's bath chamber."

"Thank you, Palla," Charleen replied. She waited until the woman had closed the door behind her and then turned back to Jon.

"Can you stand?"

Without a word, Jon leaned forward and got to his feet. He was still shaking, however, and leaned heavily against Charleen's side as they made their way out of the room and up the stairs to the topmost floor but one of the keep.

In the bath chamber, a fire was burning in the grate, suffusing the room with a dim orange glow. In the middle of the room, steam was rising from the bathtub filled with water, and on a chair beside it sat a pile of fresh clothes for Jon.

Charleen moved the clothes aside and helped Jon to sit down. His breathing was heavy with exertion and he was still very pale, but the sight of the tub of hot water seemed slowly to bring him back to the here and now.

While Charleen went to fetch a small wooden bucket, a pitcher and some cloths and towels from a shelf, he bent down to pull off his boots and then shrugged out of his gambeson. The shirt underneath was soaked with sweat, but there was no sign of blood. Charleen helped Jon pull the shirt over his head and steadied him with her arm around his waist as he got to his feet and took off his hose and smallclothes.

Fully naked, he let Charleen help him into the bathtub and lowered himself into the hot water with a sigh of relief. He scooped some water up in his hands and doused his face with it, then leaned back, resting his head on the edge of the tub.

"Charleen…" he murmured.

"Hm?"

"Thank you."

He reached out for her with his hand, and she pressed it tightly for a moment, swallowing against the lump that was rising in her throat. Then, she picked up the pitcher and filled it with water from the bath.

"Don't move," she said softly. She lifted the pitcher above Jon's head and rinsed his hair, washing out the sweat and dirt from the battle.

This done, she set aside the pitcher, soaked a clean cloth in the water and gently, very gently washed Jon's face. Jon closed his eyes while she worked, and did not open them again immediately when she was done.

"Hey, no falling asleep yet, all right?" Charleen told him, gently but firmly cupping his cheek with her hand. "Let's get you out of the bath and to your bed, and then you can rest."

She draped a large towel over the chair and helped Jon out of the tub. He was no longer shaking, but his movements as he sat down and began to dry himself off were slow and clumsy with exhaustion.

Charleen helped him to get dressed, but just as Jon was about to stand up from the chair, he paused suddenly and ran a hand across his face.

"Jon?" Charleen asked. "What is it?"

"It's fine, I'm just a bit dizzy," he said, closing his eyes.

"It's all right," Charleen reassured him, "just take it easy for a moment. Deep breaths. That's it."

When Jon had recovered a little, Charleen put her arm around his waist and helped him to his feet.

"All right?" she asked, and Jon nodded.

Slowly, they made their way out of the bath chamber, along the corridor, and into the lord's chamber at the far end.

The stone floor of the chamber was still damp – clearly, the maids had only just finished scouring. They had also removed all of Ramsay's things and exchanged the bedding. Charleen folded back the crisp, new blankets and furs for Jon, and he sank down upon the bed with a groan of relief.

"There," Charleen said gently, "that's it now." She pulled the blanket up over Jon's prone form and placed some of the furs on top.

"Are you comfortable?"

"Aye," Jon murmured, "but could I have some more water, please?"

"Of course."

Charleen hurried back downstairs to her chamber and returned to Jon's side a moment later with the cup and pitcher in her hands. She poured Jon some water and helped him drink, and when he was done, he reached out and clasped her hand in his.

"Thank you," he whispered. "My love."

Charleen looked at him for a moment; then, she bent down and very gently brushed her lips against his forehead.

"I love you, Jon."

A smile flitted across his face even as his eyes drifted closed. A moment later, his hand slackened in hers, and Charleen very gently laid it down and covered it with the blanket.

She remained sitting by Jon's side for a few minutes and then, noticing the chill in the room, she rose to light a fire.

When she straightened up again from the hearth a few moments later and turned back to the bed, her eyes fell on the carved headpiece, where two direwolves were facing each other under a smiling heart tree. In her girlhood years, the bed had belonged to Eddard Stark, the Lord of Winterfell, and his wife Lady Catelyn, but now, the face on the pillow beneath the direwolves was neither that of Eddard nor of Catelyn, but of Jon Snow.

Jon Snow, whom she loved. Jon Snow, who had promised to wed her.

Lost in thought, Charleen drew a chair up to the fire and sat down, but her musings were soon interrupted by a soft knock on the door. Without stood Maester Wolkan, his robes dishevelled and a harried look upon his face.

"My apologies for the intrusion, Lady Charleen," he said. "How is Lord Jon?"

"It's just fatigue," Charleen replied. "He's resting now."

"If he doesn't need your attention right at this moment –" Maester Wolkan hesitated, "– they are bringing in the wounded, and we could well use another pair of skilled hands."

"Of course, maester," Charleen said. "I'll be with you in a moment."

"Thank you, my lady." The maester retreated, closing the door softly behind him, and Charleen went over to the bed and touched Jon's shoulder.

"Jon," she said gently, "Jon, I'm sorry, but you have to wake up for a moment."

"Hm?" Jon grunted, fighting for consciousness.

"I'm going to have to leave you alone for a while, all right?" Charleen told him. "Maester Wolkan needs help tending to the wounded men. There's more water here if you need it, and I'm going to tell the servants to clean out the other rooms up here, so that there's someone around in case you need anything else."

"Aye," Jon murmured, his eyelids heavy, "go help. I'll be fine."

Charleen gently touched her hand to the side of his face for a moment, then left the room and headed downstairs to her chamber. Around her, the castle seemed slowly to be coming back to life – there were servants bustling around to whom she imparted her instructions, and she saw from one of the narrow windows in the staircase that the doors of the Great Hall stood open and a fire had been lit inside. She quickly gathered some supplies from her chamber, put an apron on over her dress, and then went outside to the courtyard to find Maester Wolkan.

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The first light of the new day was already visible in the eastern sky when Charleen finally took a break from her work. Being a medic, she had spent many a night tending to her patients, but never such a one as this. Her apron was stained with the blood and sweat of countless men, and her hair had escaped from its braid, loose strands clinging to her face and neck.

Charleen was not squeamish, but now her knees felt weak and her stomach was churning. Never before in her life had she seen so many grisly injuries in such short succession, deep cuts down to the bone, limbs severed, or worse, hanging on by bits of skin and flesh which she then had to cut herself, and arrows, hundreds upon hundreds of arrows sticking out of bodies contorted with pain.

More than once, a man had been brought before her dead or so near to it that there was nothing she could do. Worse, however, were the men for whose lives she desperately struggled only to watch them lose the fight, their pulses finally ebbing beneath her fingers, faces slackening as the final breath left their bodies.

Physically, too, the night had taken its toll. Some of the men, delirious with pain and fever, had fought her off as she tried to work on their injuries, and Charleen had had to hold them down even as she treated them. More than once, it had taken the combined strength of both her and Maester Wolkan in order to subdue one of the wounded men. And even those who did not struggle would sometimes insult her in their agony, or beg for her to kill them, or cry out for their mothers, or simply scream through the piece of cloth that she had given them to bite.

Their makeshift infirmary had been set up in the guards' hall, and when Charleen finally left the building and stepped outside into the icy morning air, she took a deep breath, glad to be away from the noise and stench. Across the courtyard, a faint light was coming from the windows of the Great Hall, and Charleen slowly wandered towards it, her head still spinning with the images of the past hours.

Inside the hall, a fire was burning in the great fireplace at the end of the room. The long tables had been cleared away, and only the benches stood on either side of the hall, dotted here and there with people, mostly servants of House Stark. In the middle of the room stood a single, smaller table with a dark shape upon it, and Charleen advanced towards it, a heavy feeling settling about her heart.

It was Rickon Stark.

His eyes were closed, his face white as snow. From his chest protruded the tip of an arrow, and a trail of dried blood led from the corner of his mouth across his cheek and into the tangled curls of his hair.

For a long moment, Charleen stood by Rickon's side, remembering the little boy that had scampered around Winterfell, tagging along after his older brothers as they practiced swordplay with Ser Rodrik, watching his mother at her needlework, curling up in Old Nan's lap to listen to one of her stories. She remembered, too, the charred corpses that Theon Greyjoy had displayed above the main gate of Winterfell, and her amazement when, almost four years later, Sansa whispered the truth to her in the little chamber where Ramsay was keeping her – _they weren't Bran and Rickon! Theon couldn't find them, so he had two farm boys killed instead and burned their bodies so no one would know._

And now, here he was, Rickon Stark, who had escaped from Winterfell and returned home only to meet an enemy more ruthless than the first. No longer a boy and not yet a man, his life had been cut off at the first, tender budding.

A wave of grief washed over Charleen, and she closed her eyes for a moment. Slowly, she turned and went to sit down on the bench nearest to Rickon's body. The people who had gathered to mourn him murmured a respectful greeting as she approached, and she acknowledged their sympathy with a nod.

She did not know how long she sat there, her head bowed with grief and exhaustion. It was only when there were footsteps in the passage leading out of the hall to the left of the fireplace that she lifted her gaze.

Jon had appeared in the doorway, dressed in leather armour, his sword girt at his side.

At once, everybody in the room got to their feet, but Jon held up his hand.

"Please sit," he said.

Charleen, however, did not resume her seat. She went over to Rickon's bier, and Jon crossed the room to stand beside her. Together, they looked down at Rickon for a moment; then, Jon put a comforting hand on Charleen's shoulder and raised his eyes to the people in the hall.

"We're going to bury my brother in the crypt, next to my father."

He spoke quietly, but his voice carried around the room without effort.

"As for Ramsay," he continued, his fingers tightening on Charleen's shoulder, "he hasn't fed his dogs in days. They're starving. Ease their suffering. Let them feast upon their master. And when they have satisfied their hunger, put them to the sword."


	9. Chapter 9

A little over a month after the battle, the Great Hall of Winterfell was once again furnished the way Charleen remembered it, with two long tables standing on each side beneath the windows, and the high table at the top of the room in front of the fireplace.

The hall was packed with people. They were sitting at the tables with hardly a place left empty between them, filling the room with their talk and laughter – Jon's allies had gathered to celebrate their victory.

However, it was not just his friends that Jon had summoned, but all the lords of the North without exception. Robbett Glover was sitting halfway down the hall, his back very straight, his eyes fixed upon the table before him, and there were a few others in the room who looked similarly uncomfortable.

Jon himself was sitting at the high table, alone. He had wanted to place Charleen by his side, but she had refused. _I'm not a Stark_ , she had insisted, _neither by blood nor by marriage – at least not yet. I don't belong at the high table of Winterfell._

And so, she had taken a seat at the top of one of the long tables, opposite Lyanna Mormont and with Brienne of Tarth at her side. Brienne had been wounded in the battle, but her physical injuries were nothing compared to her pain and self-reproach at the death of Sansa Stark, whom she had sworn to protect. She had barely spoken to anyone after the battle, and even now, she did not return Charleen's smile but merely nodded in greeting.

Lyanna Mormont, on the other hand, smiled broadly at Charleen for a moment before turning her head back to the high table. Charleen followed her gaze, and as she did so, Jon thumped the table with the palm of his hand, and silence fell.

"The free folk, the Northerners, and the Knights of the Vale fought bravely, fought together, and we won."

The hall erupted into deafening cheers at his words, but when the noise died down once again, Lord Royce got to his feet with a pinched expression upon his face.

"With respect, my lord," he said, "not _all_ the Northern houses fought together. The Umbers and the Karstarks betrayed the North. They need to be punished for their treason. Take their castles and give them to new families, loyal families who supported you against the Boltons."

A murmur of approval ran around the room, and Jon waited for it to subside before he spoke.

"The Umbers and the Karstarks have fought beside the Starks for centuries," he said calmly. "They've kept faith for generation after generation. I'm not going to strip these families of their ancestral homes because of the crimes of a few reckless sons."

"So there's no punishment for treason and no reward for loyalty?" Lord Royce interjected angrily.

"The punishment for treason is death," Jon declared. "Smalljon Umber died on the field of battle. Harald Karstark died on the field of battle." He paused. "When I was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, I executed men who betrayed me. I executed men who refused to follow orders. But I will not punish a son for his father's sins, and I will not take a family home away from a family it has belonged to for centuries. That is my decision, and my decision is final."

He looked directly at Lord Royce for a moment, and then his gaze swept across the hall.

"Ned Umber!" he called, "Alys Karstark!"

At the far end of the hall, a boy got to his feet who could not be more than ten years old, and on the other side of the room, only two seats down from Lord Royce, a young woman with auburn hair also rose to stand.

Jon beckoned them towards him, and they approached the high table with looks of trepidation upon their faces.

"For centuries, our families fought side by side on the battlefield," Jon said to them. "I ask you to pledge your loyalty once again to House Stark, to serve as our bannermen and come to our aid whenever called upon."

Immediately, without hesitation, Alys Karstark and Ned Umber drew their swords and knelt.

"Stand," Jon ordered. "Yesterday's wars don't matter anymore. The North needs to band together, all the living North. Will you stand beside me, Ned and Alys, now and always?"

"Now and always," they echoed, and there was another outburst of cheers and applause.

Alys Karstark's face relaxed into a smile of relief, and Ned Umber looked up at Jon admiringly. Together, they turned to resume their seats and were received with acclamations of encouragement by their neighbours at the table.

When the din subsided, Lyanna Mormont stood up to speak.

"House Umber and House Karstark were not the only ones who broke faith with House Stark," she said. "Your son was butchered at the Red Wedding, Lord Manderly, but you refused the call. You swore allegiance to House Stark, Lord Glover, but in their hour of greatest need, you refused the call. And you, Lord Cerwyn, your father was skinned alive by Ramsay Bolton. Still, you refused the call." She addressed the three men in turn as she spoke, and they shifted uncomfortably under her disapproving gaze.

"But House Mormont remembers," Lyanna continued, "the North remembers! We know no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark." She turned to look at Jon. "I don't care if he's a bastard. Ned Stark's blood runs through his veins. He's _my_ king, from this day until his last day."

With a nod of emphasis, Lyanna resumed her seat and smiled at Charleen.

On the other side of the room, amid a murmur of voices, Lord Manderly got to his feet.

"Lady Mormont speaks harshly," he admitted, "and truly. My son died for Robb Stark, the Young Wolf. I didn't think we'd find another king in my lifetime." He turned to Jon. "I didn't commit my men to your cause because I didn't want more Manderlys dying for nothing. But I was wrong. Jon Snow avenged the Red Wedding! He is the White Wolf, the King in the North!"

And with this, he unsheathed his sword and knelt to Jon as Ned Umber and Alys Karstark had done.

Once again, there were murmurs of approval, and then a scraping noise of wood on stone as Lord Glover rose from his bench.

"I did not fight beside you on the field," he said to Jon, his voice faltering, "and I will regret that until my dying day. A man can only admit when he was wrong, and ask forgiveness. "

Jon swallowed.

"There's nothing to forgive, my lord."

"There will be more fights to come. House Glover will stand behind House Stark as we have for a thousand years! And I will stand behind Jon Snow –" he raised his sword – "the King in the North!"

"The King in the North!" Lord Cerwyn echoed, rising from his seat, and with a roar of approval, everyone else in the room followed suit, raising their swords in an impassioned salute.

"The King in the North! The King in the North! The King in the North! The King in the North! The King in the North!"

With a shiver running down her spine, Charleen watched as Jon got to his feet. His shoulders were heaving with emotion, and his eyes wandered around the room for a moment until they finally met hers. And Charleen held his gaze as her lips formed the words that were echoing around the room in a single, many-voiced shout.

"The King in the North! The King in the North! The King in the North!"

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That evening, Charleen returned to her chamber long before the feast was over, desperate to spend some time alone with her thoughts away from the noise and chatter. Jon had been surrounded by people all evening, and though he had beckoned for her to join him at the high table once the feast began and the seating arrangements started to break up, Charleen had preferred to remain where she was, protected by Brienne's silence from the conversation that she did not feel like joining.

When she reached her room, she closed the door behind her with a breath of relief. She went to light a fire and sat down in a chair by the hearth, watching as the flames curled around the logs, licking at their fuel like so many orange tongues.

 _The King in the North._

Before the battle for Winterfell, Charleen had not given much thought to what might happen in the event of their victory. Barring Rickon's survival, she had simply assumed that Sansa would remain Lady of Winterfell, her bastard brother counselling her, perhaps, but otherwise free to live his life as he pleased.

But Sansa and Rickon were both gone, making Jon the Lord of Winterfell, and even though Charleen at first had recoiled from the idea of sharing his title, her feelings for Jon had gradually conquered her doubts. Now, however, in addition to his lordship, Jon had been proclaimed King in the North, and the thought of marriage appeared downright preposterous.

All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door, startling Charleen out of her thoughts.

"Come in."

The door opened, and Charleen immediately got to her feet when she saw who it was.

"Your Grace."

"Please don't," Jon implored, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. "I've been _Your Grace_ 'd all evening – don't _you_ start now, as well."

"Why not?" Charleen said. "You're _my_ king, too."

"I hope I'm more to you than that," Jon replied, crossing the room and grasping her hands in his. "I hope that you will call me 'husband' soon."

He cupped her face with his hand, but Charleen avoided his gaze.

"Jon, we can't be married now," she said. "Don't you remember what Lord Glover said at Deepwood Motte, about Robb? Your brother made a stupid mistake, and he lost his head for it. You need to be smarter than him. You mustn't make the same mistake."

Jon drew back a little, his brow furrowed as he tried to remember what she was referring to. Then, the memory came back to him, and he scoffed.

"You're hardly a 'foreign whore'. You're highborn, and a true Northerner."

"That's not what I mean," Charleen explained. "Robb married for love, when he should have married for expediency. You're a king now, you need faithful allies. You should wed Alys Karstark, or one of Lord Glover's daughters, or maybe Lyanna Mormont once she's a few years older –"

"Have you lost your mind?" Jon interrupted her. "I'm not going to marry anyone else! I didn't _ask_ to be named king, and I am not going to let it keep me from marrying the woman I love!"

He paused, his dark eyes fixed upon Charleen's face, then added quietly, "if she is willing."

Under Jon's gaze, Charleen's resistance melted like an icicle in the sun.

"Of course I'm willing," she half-whispered. "But what if your bannermen don't like your choice of bride? What if they feel that their families have been slighted?"

"Winter has come," Jon replied. "We must band together if we want to survive. The Northern houses can't afford to stand upon their pride."

"Still," Charleen insisted, "let's not make a big affair of our wedding. Let's keep it private – just you and I."

"Aye," Jon said, nodding slowly, "just you and I." He drew Charleen towards her, but she resisted.

"And when we're married, I don't want to be called queen," she told him. "Your people chose you to be their king, but they did not choose me, and I therefore cannot share your title."

"All right," Jon answered, "you don't need to hold the title if you don't want it. But you'll always be _my_ queen."

And with that, he pulled her close and kissed her, and Charleen, wholly conquered, leaned eagerly into his touch.


	10. Chapter 10

Charleen had never been particularly fond of embroidery, but when the date appointed for her wedding to Jon Snow drew near, she found herself acquiring a new appreciation for it as the sigil of House Wollard, a flaming beacon, slowly took shape upon the thick woollen fabric of her maiden cloak. Sitting by the fire in her chamber with her back to the window where snow was gathering upon the ledge, she spent many hours carefully guiding her needle to and fro, threaded with brown yarn at first for the wooden structure of the beacon, and then with yarn in the colours of flame – yellow, orange, and crimson. The cloak itself was the colour of House Wollard, black, with a silver clasp in front.

In her wardrobe, among her other clothes, Charleen's wedding dress was waiting for its appearance – a simple gown of white lambswool, which she had had one of the seamstresses make for her. The old woman had smiled knowingly when Charleen tried on the garment, and Charleen had turned her face away to hide her blush.

Her maiden cloak, however, she had wanted to make herself. It was going to be the first time that the sigil of House Wollard would be displayed in public since the death of her father, and also the last, since the male line of the Wollards ended with him. Charleen had never known her parents, but in making her maiden cloak, she felt that she was honouring their memory.

Embroidering also brought back memories of her childhood, when she had spent many afternoons practising needlework with the other young ladies of Winterfell, all under the watchful eyes of Septa Mordane. Lacking both skill and patience, Charleen had often longed for the end of the lesson, so that she might be able to return to Maester Luwin with his herbs and salves and elixirs, and his knowledge of the human body, its afflictions, and their cures. It had been similar for Arya, Charleen remembered, though of course, Arya's desire had not been directed towards Maester Luwin's study, but towards the courtyard, where the boys were riding their horses, shooting arrows, and practicing with sword and shield. Only Sansa had thoroughly enjoyed doing needlework, which was small wonder given her talent for it. Charleen remembered how Sansa's face had glowed with happiness whenever Septa Mordane praised her; and when a knock at the door of her chamber suddenly burst through her thoughts, she wiped her eyes with her hand before answering.

It was Jon. He closed the door and crossed the room towards her, and Charleen felt a smile spreading across her face in spite of her tears.

"My apologies," she said softly, "I'd rise, but –"

She gestured at the needlework in her lap, and Jon stretched out his hand to touch the half-finished embroidery.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Aye," Charleen almost whispered. "I hope you'll like it. And my dress."

"You'll be the most beautiful bride in all of the seven kingdoms," Jon declared.

He grasped her head with his hand and kissed her gently on the forehead. "I'm sorry for disturbing you," he added. "There was a raven from King's Landing."

He held up a scroll of parchment, and Charleen looked at it warily.

"From whom?" she asked.

Jon exhaled deeply as he lowered his eyes to the parchment.

"Cersei of House Lannister, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms," he read.

"What does she want?"

"Come to King's Landing, bend the knee, or suffer the fate of all traitors."

Charleen sighed heavily. "We're so preoccupied with the enemy to the north, but we can't forget about the one to the south."

"There's a thousand miles between us and Cersei," Jon reassured her. "Winter is here. The Lannisters are a southern army – they've never ranged this far north."

"You know more about armies than I do," Charleen admitted, "but don't underestimate Cersei Lannister. Her husband the king is dead, all of her children are dead, and yet she is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms."

"She killed my father and brother," Jon pointed out. "I'm not going to underestimate her."

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On the day of her wedding, Charleen readied herself at dusk.

She had taken a bath, washed and brushed her hair and twisted up the strands that framed her face, pinning them in place at the back of her head. Darkness was falling outside as she slipped on her white wedding dress and picked up her maiden cloak from where it lay waiting for her on the back of her chair. The embroidery was finished – Charleen had extended the flames surging from the beacon all the way around the shoulders and towards the clasp that fastened the cloak in front. On this night, the beacon fires of House Wollard would blaze through the darkness one last time before being extinguished forever as Charleen joined the wolves of House Stark.

Charleen looked at her reflection in the mirror on the side of her wardrobe for a moment and slightly adjusted her cloak so that the flames framed her neck symmetrically on both sides. Then, she moved across the room to the window and peered out into the gathering darkness. For a few minutes, she stood almost motionless, until a light suddenly appeared in the courtyard – the flicker of a torch, revealing to her the outlines of two figures moving towards the entrance of the godswood.

It was time.

Her heart suddenly beating hard and fast inside her chest, Charleen turned and crossed the room towards the door, where she took one of the torches from its sconce in the wall. Stepping out into the passage, she looked around almost furtively for a moment and then started towards the staircase leading down to the gate of the Great Keep.

A minute later, Charleen emerged into the courtyard. Snow was falling, fine and dense as mist, and the buildings around her were fringed with icicles. She made her way towards the godswood, her footsteps muffled by the snow. The gate stood open, and she passed through and closed it behind her before starting down the path towards the great heart tree.

When a light finally came became visible at the end of the path, Charleen's knees went weak beneath her. Heart thumping, she forced herself to continue on at a measured pace until the old weirwood tree came into view, pale branches stretching up into the swirling snow. Beneath it, two figures stood waiting in the light of a torch fixed in an iron stand. On the left was Maester Wolkan, whom they had chosen to officiate the wedding so that he might act as witness and make a record of it in the archives of Winterfell. And on the right –

Jon was wearing a heavy cloak trimmed with fur over his armour of boiled leather, and on his chest gleamed a metal gorget hammered with the direwolf of House Stark. He turned his head to look at Charleen as she approached, and when their eyes met, a smile flickered across his face.

"Who comes before the old gods this night?" Maester Wolkan asked.

"Charleen of House Wollard comes here to be wed," Charleen replied, swallowing against a sudden lump in her throat. "A woman grown, trueborn and noble, I come to beg the blessings of the gods."

"Who comes to claim her?" the maester continued, and Charleen saw Jon's shoulders moving as he took a deep breath.

"Jon Snow of House Stark," he said, "Lord of Winterfell, and King in the North."

"Who gives her?"

"I come alone," Charleen declared, "having no living kin."

The maester looked at her steadily. "Lady Charleen, will you take this man?" he asked.

"Yes," Charleen replied eagerly, her voice quivering, "I will. I take this man."

"Then let gods and men bear witness to your vow," Maester Wolkan said. He took her torch and stepped aside, and Charleen and Jon joined hands before the heart tree. In the flickering light of the torches, the face etched into its bark seemed to have come alive, looking down upon the lovers with an ever-changing expression. They knelt down upon the ground, bowing their heads in token of submission, and then rose as one.

Jon bent over his bride to undo the clasp that fastened her maiden cloak, and a shiver ran down her spine when the garment fell away. She watched, motionless, as Maester Wolkan stepped forward, took the cloak from Jon and handed him a second one, which, she realized belatedly, he had been carrying across his arm all the while. It was made of dark grey wool, with a broad fur collar across the shoulders and the direwolf of House Stark done in soft white leather on the back. Tears burning in her eyes, Charleen turned around, away from Jon, and felt a soft weight settling upon her shoulders as he wrapped the cloak around her. For a second, she closed her eyes, letting the tears fall, and then moved to face Jon once again. His fingers were trembling as he reached for the clasp and fastened the cloak upon Charleen's breast. Slowly, he raised his gaze to hers, and kissed her tenderly.

Her heart swelling within her, Charleen returned the kiss.

She drew back a little after a moment with fresh tears brimming in her eyes. Jon grasped her hand, and they both turned to Maester Wolkan, who gave them leave to go with a smile and a nod.

Hand in hand, Charleen and Jon made their way back through the godswood, across the courtyard, and into the Great Keep. The hallway inside the castle was deserted, but on the stairs leading up to the second floor, they met the old servant Palla, who was making her way down with an empty basket of firewood slung across her arm.

"Your Grace," she said softly, inclining her head, "my lady."

A smile appeared on her wizened features as her eyes travelled over Charleen's dress and cloak, and Charleen, smiling shyly in her turn, felt a blush creeping up her cheeks.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Jon put his arm around his bride, lifted her up against his chest and carried her the rest of the way along the corridor and into the lord's chamber.

It was the first time that Charleen had been inside the room since the battle, and she immediately noticed Jon's scent, a faint but distinct aroma of leather, wood and salt that sent a thrill of excitement through her. As soon as Jon set her back on her feet, she leaned in to kiss him, her breath catching in her throat as he reciprocated, filling her mouth with his taste. Jon's hands moved to the clasps of her new cloak, and the garment fell away to pool at her feet. Her dress was next – Jon motioned for her to turn around and carefully undid the lacing at her back. The dress slipped down, leaving nothing but her shift. Charleen stepped out of the pile of fabric gathered at her feet and turned back to Jon with a deep breath. Jon stood motionless for a moment as his eyes travelled over her form; then, he closed the distance between them and kissed her passionately.

All at once, he broke away and got on his knees to pull off her boots. Shivering slightly as her bare feet touched the stone floor, Charleen caressed his hair with trembling fingers, and he lifted his face to look at her.

"Are you a maid?"

"Aye," Charleen whispered, her mouth dry.

Slowly, very slowly, Jon ran his hand up her leg, lifting up her shift. Charleen felt his warm breath on her thighs as he leaned in to kiss her, and gasped as his tongue caressed between her legs. She pulled the shift over her head, closing her eyes as Jon scooped her up into his arms and laid her down on the bed.

"Oh," he breathed, drinking in the sight of her naked body, "but you _are_ beautiful!"

He unclasped his cloak, unbuckled his gorget and shrugged out of his armour and clothes until only his smallclothes were left. With bated breath, Charleen watched as he pulled them off. She had seen him naked before, but he looked different now, and it filled her with awe. He moved to kneel between her legs, lowered himself down upon her and entered her, slowly, but with purpose. A moan of pain escaped her lips – it felt like fire, but once the pain subsided, the warmth remained.

"Jon," she whispered, "oh, Jon."


	11. Chapter 11

"The Boltons are defeated!" Lord Cerwyn exclaimed, getting to his feet. "The war is over! Winter has come. If the maesters are right, it'll be the coldest one in a thousand years. We should ride home and wait out the coming storms."

He looked around the hall at the other Northern lords, who nodded and murmured in approval.

For the second time in less than a month, they had all gathered in the Great Hall of Winterfell at Jon's behest, but the mood this time was different, charged, almost mutinous. A white raven had come from the citadel, announcing the beginning of winter. Eager to return to their keeps and protect their own through the dark and the cold, Jon's bannermen had not taken kindly to his command that they prepare for another war. From where she was sitting beside Jon at the high table, Charleen had watched them shaking their heads and exchanging sullen looks until Lord Cerwyn had finally given voice to their grievance, gathering audible support as he spoke.

Out of the corner of her eye, Charleen saw Ser Davos, who was sitting on Jon's other side, glance at him uneasily. Jon waited patiently for the noise to die down; then, he took a deep breath and rose to his feet.

"The war is not over," he declared calmly, "and I promise you, my lords, the true enemy won't wait out the storm. He _brings_ the storm."

Once again, a murmur ran around the hall, but it was hushed this time, tinged with doubt.

"The dead are coming," Jon continued. "I've seen them."

A silence followed, broken only by the crackling of logs in the hearth, and the people in the hall seemed to draw closer together, huddling against a sudden shiver of cold.

"This war is the only war that matters," Jon said. "If we don't prepare, we'll all end up as corpses marching in the Night King's army. I want every Northern maester to scour their records for any mention of dragonglass. Dragonglass kills White Walkers; it's more valuable to us now than gold. We need to find it, we need to mine it, we need to make weapons from it. Everyone aged ten to sixty will drill daily with spears, pikes, bow and arrow."

There was another silence, long and terse, and it was finally broken by Lord Glover's rumbling voice:

"It's about time we taught these boys of summer how to fight."

The hall erupted in chuckles and exclamations of assent. As the tension broke, Charleen exhaled deeply, but Jon had not finished.

"Not just the boys," he said. "We can't defend the North if only half the population is fighting."

The noise died down almost instantly.

"You expect me to put spears in my daughters' hands?" Lord Glover scowled, rising to his feet.

On the other side of the hall, Lyanna Mormont imitated his gesture.

"I don't plan on knitting by the fire while men fight for me!" she exclaimed. "I might be small, Lord Glover, and I might be a girl, but I'm every bit as much a Northerner as you."

"Indeed you are, my lady. No one is questioning –"

"And I don't need your permission to defend the North!" Lyanna cut him off, and Charleen leaned forward slightly in her chair to exchange a faint smile with Ser Davos.

"We will begin training every man, woman, boy and girl on Bear Island," Lyanna declared, her eyes moving between Lord Glover and Jon. A murmur of assent followed her words, and some of the men thumped the table with their hands.

Pressing his advantage, Jon spoke over the noise.

"While we're preparing for attack, we need to shore up our defences," he said. "The only thing standing between us and the army of the dead is the Wall, and the Wall hasn't been properly manned in centuries. I'm not the king of the free folk," he paused, and at the far end of the hall, Tormund leaned forward in his seat. "But if we're going to survive this winter together…"

Tormund rose to his feet and took a step forward.

"You want _us_ to man the castles for you?"

"Aye," Jon said, ignoring the murmurs of his men. "Last time we saw the Night King was at Hardhome. The closest castle to Hardhome is Eastwatch-by-the-Sea."

"Then that's where I'll go," Tormund declared. He looked around the hall, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Looks like _we're_ the Night's Watch now."

To Charleen's surprise, hardly a mutter came from the men as their eyes remained fixed upon Jon.

"If they breach the Wall," he continued quickly, "we'll make our stand here, at Winterfell. Maester Wolkan tells me that we currently have four thousand bushels of grain in store. If you and your men have to come back, that won't be enough. We need to start building up our stores with regular shipments from every keep in the North. If we don't use it by the end of winter, we'll give it back to you. But if you have to flee to Winterfell, you won't have the time to bring wagonloads of grain with you."

He paused, and exhaled deeply.

"Go, make your preparations. I hope they'll prove unnecessary."

He sat down heavily among the babble of many voices and the scraping of benches as his men rose to their feet and slowly began to leave the hall. For a moment, his gaze remained fixed upon them; then, he turned his head to look at Charleen.

"You're good at this, you know," she said, before Jon had the chance to speak.

"At what?"

Charleen jerked her head towards the hall, indicating the retreating backs of the men.

"At ruling."

"No," Jon scoffed, "I'm not. It's –"

"You are," Charleen cut him off. "You are. They respect you, they really do. You –"

She stopped short as her eyes fell on Maester Wolkan, who had entered through the door at the back of the hall and was approaching their table with a scroll of parchment in his hands.

"Your Grace," he said, bowing slightly, "my lady, Ser Davos, my apologies for the interruption. There was a raven from Dragonstone." He held the parchment out to Jon. "It bears the seal of House Targaryen."

"House _Targaryen_?"

His brow furrowed, Jon unfurled the scroll, scanned its contents, and then handed it to Charleen without a word.

 _Queen Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, invites you to Dragonstone,_ she read silently. _My Queen commands the combined forces of Dorne and the Reach, an Ironborn fleet_ –. And then came three terms that she had not encountered since her girlhood lessons with Maester Luwin.

Unsullied. Dothraki. _Dragons_.

Her eyes darted to the name suffixed to the letter.

"Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen," she read aloud. "What is _Tyrion Lannister_ doing as Hand of the Queen to _Daenerys Targaryen_?"

She passed the letter to Ser Davos, but it was Maester Wolkan who answered.

"I would expect that he is hiding from his sister," he said. "Queen Cersei holds him responsible for the death of their father and of King Joffrey her son, and she has offered a handsome reward to the man who brings her his head."

"But –" Charleen looked at Jon uncertainly, "do you think it's really him? It could be someone trying to lure you into a trap."

"Read the last bit," Jon said, and Ser Davos held out the letter to her.

" _I appeal to you, one bastard to another, for all dwarves are bastards in their fathers' eyes._ What does that mean?"

"It's something he said to me the first night we met," Jon explained, and after a pause, he added, "Tyrion is not like the other Lannisters."

"It's too great a risk," Charleen declared. She glanced back at the letter. " _The Seven Kingdoms will bleed as long as Cersei sits on the Iron Throne. Join us. Together we can end her tyranny._ "

"He sounds like a charmer," Ser Davos remarked with a hint of sarcasm, holding out his hand to take back the letter. "Of course, the casual mention of a Dothraki horde, a legion of Unsullied and three dragons is a bit less charming."

He hesitated, and Jon turned to look at him.

"What?"

"Fire kills wights, you told me," Ser Davos replied slowly. "What breathes fire?"

"You're not suggesting Jon meet with her?" Charleen asked doubtfully.

"No," Ser Davos shook his head, "too dangerous."

"But –?" Jon prompted him.

"But if the army of the dead makes it past the Wall, do we have enough men to fight them?"

Jon looked away from Ser Davos, but before he could reply, the door at the far end of the hall opened and two guardsmen entered. They approached the high table with a slightly sheepish look on their faces, and Jon took the letter and gave it back to Maester Wolkan before turning to the men with a deep exhalation of breath.

"Sorry to interrupt, Your Grace," one of the men said, a tall fellow with close-cropped hair and a clean-shaven face. Charleen raised her eyebrows at him, but his next words were enough to drive any thought of the Targaryen queen completely off her mind.

"There was a girl at the gate who claimed to be Arya Stark. We told her to wait. We were standing right next to her, and –" he faltered, looking at his companion for assistance.

"And – and when we turned around, she'd gone, Your Grace," the other man finished. "She was nothing," he added hastily, "some winter town girl…"

"She comes in asking for, er, Ser Rodrik," the first man stammered.

"Ser Rodrik, aye…"

"And a Maester Luwin…"

"Luwin, aye… Don't – don't trouble yourself over it, Your Grace, we'll, er, we'll find her...," the second man trailed off.

Charleen turned to cast a meaningful glance at Jon, and he returned her look with a faint smile on his lips.

"You don't have to," he said to the guards. "I know where she is."

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

The crypts of Winterfell were dank and gloomy, illuminated only by a few candles that were casting long, flickering shadows over the stone statues of the honoured dead of House Stark.

Jon and Charleen advanced with bated breath, their steps echoing loudly from the stone walls and ceiling. The vault appeared deserted, but when they reached the alcove that held the statue of Lord Eddard, a familiar voice rang out behind them.

"You used to be taller."

Both of them whirled around, and there she was, Arya Stark, dressed in a tattered woollen cloak, with her sword girt at her hip and her dark hair pulled back from her face just like her father's had been.

"How did you sneak past the guards?" Jon asked her, his voice breaking.

"How did you go from the Night's Watch to King in the North?"

"It's a long story," Jon replied softly. "I imagine yours is, too."

He started towards her, and Charleen heard her half-laugh, half-sob as she threw herself into his arms, her feet leaving the floor as Jon lifted her and held her tight. When he set her back down, she stood at arm's length, looking him up and down with a disbelieving smile upon her face.

"It suits you, King in the North," she said. "And you," she added, turning to Charleen and embracing her in turn, "Queen in the North?"

"Oh, no," Charleen tried to scoff, but it came out as a sob. "Married to Jon, but not Queen in the North."

"Hm."

Arya smiled at her, but then her face suddenly grew serious, and she turned her head to look at the statue of Ned Stark looming above them in the alcove.

"It doesn't look like him," she said. "It should've been carved by someone who knew his face."

"Everyone who knew his face is dead," Jon pointed out.

"We're not."

"No, we're not." Jon exhaled deeply. "How did you get back here?"

"I was on my way to King's Landing, but then I heard that you'd retaken Winterfell."

"King's Landing?" Charleen repeated, surprised. "Why would you go there?"

Arya hesitated. "Cersei's on my list," she finally replied.

"Your list?"

"Of people I'm going to kill."

Her tone was serious, but then, she suddenly began to chuckle, and after a moment's stunned silence, both Jon and Charleen joined in.

Finally, Jon jerked his head towards the hilt of the sword protruding from beneath Arya's cloak.

"You still have it?"

"Needle," Arya said proudly, unsheathing the weapon and presenting it to him.

"Have you ever used it?"

"Once or twice."

Arya's voice was barely above a whisper, and a suspicion suddenly crept up on Charleen that sent shivers down her spine.

"Who else is on your list?"

"Most of them are dead already."

"What happened to you?" Charleen pressed. "Where were you all these years?"

Arya looked up at her, and there was a darkness in her eyes that Charleen had never seen there before.

"I was in Braavos," she said. "Training."

"Training?"

"To be a Faceless Man." She paused. "It's not a very pleasant story. But our stories aren't over yet."

"No," Charleen said slowly, "they're not."

And with that, she pulled Arya into another long embrace.


	12. Chapter 12

_This chapter is a bit short, but rather important. I hope you have fun reading it!_

 _And since it's mostly about a journey, I'd like to use the opportunity to thank all of you who have accompanied me on this journey so far, who have been reading, following, favouriting, and commenting. Your support means a lot - please stay tuned, and tell me what you think!_

Arya had barely been at Winterfell two weeks when another raven came from the south, heralding the end of their reunion.

Charleen had returned to the keep late one night after helping to deliver a baby in the winter town to find Jon sitting up by the fire in their bedroom, waiting for her with the letter in his hand.

"I _have_ to go to Dragonstone," he had said, holding the parchment out to her by way of an explanation. His tone had been final, brooking no argument, but Charleen, glancing over the contents of the letter, had been unable to stop herself.

"What if something happens to you? You promised never to leave me..."

"I'm not going to leave you. You're going to come with me."

They had slept but little that night, and on the following morning, Jon had called Arya, Maester Wolkan, and Ser Davos to his study to tell them of his decision. On the table before him lay the second letter, and beside it the first one that had been sent by Tyrion Lannister.

Looking first at Charleen and then at each of the others in turn, Jon took a deep breath and picked up the second letter.

"This message was sent to me by Sam Tarly," he said. "He was my brother at the Night's Watch, a man I trust as much as anyone in this world. He's discovered proof that Dragonstone sits on a mountain of dragonglass." He paused, reaching for the other letter. "I received this a few days ago, from Dragonstone. It was sent to me by Tyrion Lannister. He is now Hand of the Queen to Daenerys Targaryen. She intends to take the Iron Throne from Cersei Lannister. She has a powerful army at her back, and, if this message is to be believed, three dragons. Lord Tyrion has invited me to Dragonstone to meet with Daenerys, and I'm going to accept."

There was a moment's silence, and then an exclamation of disbelief from Arya.

"What –? No, you can't go now, you can't just _leave_ –!"

"I've asked all the Northern maesters to search their records for mentions of dragonglass," Jon cut across her, "and now –," he gestured towards Sam's letter. "We _need_ this dragonglass. We know that dragonglass can destroy both White Walkers and their army. We need to mine it, and turn it into weapons. But more importantly, we need allies. The Night King's army grows larger by the day. We can't defeat them on our own. Daenerys has her own army, and –" he looked meaningfully at Ser Davos, "she has dragonfire. I need to try and persuade her to fight with us."

He turned to Charleen, and with a nod she confirmed the answer that she had given him the previous night.

"Charleen and I will ride for White Harbour," Jon continued, "and sail from there for Dragonstone."

"Have you forgotten what happened to our grandfather?" Arya interjected heatedly. "The Mad King invited him to King's Landing and roasted him alive!"

"I know that," Jon said quietly.

"She is here to reclaim the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms," Arya insisted. The North is one of those seven kingdoms. This isn't an invitation, it's a trap!"

"It could be," Jon agreed in a level voice. "But I don't believe Tyrion Lannister would do that. I know him. He's a good man."

At this, Maester Wolkan straightened in his chair.

"Your Grace," he said, "with respect, I must agree with Lady Arya. I remember the Mad King all too well. A Targaryen cannot be trusted. Nor can a Lannister."

"Jon," Arya pressed, "winter is here. The King in the North needs to be _in_ the North!"

Jon lowered his gaze for a moment, but when he looked up again, his face was set.

"I never wanted to be king," he declared. "I never asked for it. But I accepted it because the North is my home. It's part of me and I will never stop fighting for it, no matter the odds. But the odds are against us. None of you have seen the army of the dead." He exhaled deeply. "We can never hope to defeat them alone. We need allies, powerful allies. I know it's a risk. But we have to take it."

"Then send an emissary!" Arya exclaimed. "Don't go yourself!"

"Daenerys is a queen," Jon replied calmly. "Only a king can convince her to help us. It has to be me."

"You're abandoning your people! You're abandoning your _home_!"

"I'm leaving both in good hands."

"Whose?!"

"Yours."

Taken entirely by surprise, Arya merely stared at him.

"You are my sister," Jon told her. "You're the only Stark in Winterfell."

He looked at her steadily, and after a moment, Arya nodded.

"Be careful," she said, very quietly. "Both of you."

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

A few days later, dawn came with swirling snows and the stomping and snorting of horses in the courtyard as Jon and Charleen made ready for their journey south. Jon had asked Ser Davos to accompany them, and a small escort of a dozen armed men.

By the gate leading out of the castle stood Arya, watching silently as Jon examined his horse's tack one final time and then came towards her, pulling on his gloves. Charleen followed him, shivering a little in spite of the thick fur cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She hung back as Jon bade farewell to his sister with a few quiet words and a tight embrace, then stepped forward in her turn.

"Goodbye, Arya," she said.

"There are dangerous people out there," Arya told her. "Take care of yourself."

"And you," Charleen murmured.

She put her arms around Arya, and they held each other close for a moment. Then, Charleen broke away and turned to take her horse's bridle. Jon was already mounted, and when she had climbed into the saddle, he caught her gaze. Charleen gave a nod, and they both spurred their horses on to gallop out through the castle gates, with the others following them.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

Charleen could smell the sea before she saw it. She had never been to the coast before, but the faint, salty tang in the air that grew ever stronger as they travelled south along the White Knife river was unmistakeable. Unfamiliar-looking birds were gliding across the sky, emitting strange, keening cries.

Finally, the river widened, and a vast expanse of water came into view, stretching out all the way to the horizon. Charleen could hear a faint rushing noise from where it lapped the shore, surging right up to the great stone wall that encircled the city of White Harbour.

The city was a marvel in itself – Charleen had never seen so many buildings so close together, innumerable walls and roofs nestling around the New Castle of House Manderly that was perched high upon the cliff overlooking the river and the sea.

Lord Manderly had invited them to stay with him for a few days before continuing their journey, but as they approached the city, Charleen's gaze was drawn to the port and to the ships lying at anchor there. Another ship was visible out at sea, sails billowing in the wind. Out there upon the main, it looked minuscule, a few planks of wood and yards of cloth against the boundless swell of the waves, and Charleen felt a sudden, shivering thrill prickling down the back of her neck.

GoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoTGoT

Lord Manderly had chosen his grandest ship to bear them south, a magnificent, two-masted caravel furnished in a manner well worthy of a king, but Charleen did not find the sea voyage to be particularly enjoyable. The constant movement of the planks beneath her feet disconcerted her from the moment she first stepped on board; and when they left the estuary of the White Fork river on the morning of the second day and sailed out into the open ocean, the movement turned into a steady, lurching roll that made her head spin and her stomach clench with nausea.

By midday, she could no longer conceal her suffering. Slumped in a chair in the cabin with a wooden bucket on the floor between her feet, she closed her eyes, fighting desperately against the urge to be sick. Jon was sitting beside her, comfortingly rubbing her back even though he was looking miserable himself, his face deathly pale and glistening with cold sweat.

"We should go up on deck," he suggested hoarsely. "The fresh air helped me when I was sailing to Hardhome."

Charleen merely shook her head. If she was going to lose her dignity, she felt, it would be better to suffer it here, away from the eyes of the sailors.

There was a knock at the cabin door and Ser Davos entered. Having spent most of his life on boats and ships of various kinds, he did not even seem to notice the swell that was threatening to turn Charleen's insides out, and at the scene before him, his lips twitched into a pitying smile.

"It does get better," he said. "You just need some time to get used to the movement."

And he quickly averted his gaze as Charleen, finally losing the battle with her stomach, bent over, and reached for the bucket.


End file.
